Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Local Authorities (Revisions of Fees)

Mr. Costain: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why Home Office Circular No. 88/1968, advising local authorities of revisions of fees on 1st April, 1968, was not sent so as to arrive before 28th March, 1968.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Ennals): I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer given to a Question by the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) on 6th May.—[Vol. 764, c. 25.]

Mr. Costain: Does the Minister realise that local authorities had sent out for and collected fees at the old rate before the circular arrived, and that 49 of these fees have risen by between 100 and 2,000 per cent.? Does it not make it difficult to collect the new fees and is it not costing local authorities a lot of money through the negligence of his Department?

Mr. Ennals: I have already expressed apologies on behalf of the Department. The initial reason why it was not sent out immediately was that there had been a whole series of Parliamentary Questions tabled on the Orders, and also a Prayer.

Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920

Mr. Lipton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further progress has been made in dealing with the issues raised by the case of Mr. H. J. Pilcher, of 162, Brixton Hill Court, S.W.2, since the Home Office pro-

posals were made known to the Conference of Commonwealth Law Ministers held in 1966.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): The point has been noted for amendment of the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920, but my right hon. Friend cannot hold out hope of early legislation.

Mr. Lipton: Is my hon. Friend aware that I have been in correspondence about this case with a succession of Home Secretaries since 1958? When will some action be taken to remedy the very serious injustices suffered by my constituent, and possibly by others in this connection?

Mr. Morgan: I am aware of my hon. Friend's efforts in this matter. The subject matter is complex and, to some extent, dependent on development in other countries. It is, however, of concern to comparatively few parties to maintenance orders and cannot be given undue priority. My hon. Friend will be aware of the Conference of Commonwealth Law Ministers which was held in 1966.

Litter Act

Mr. John Page: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions have taken place under the Litter Act during each year since the legislation was enacted; and how many of these resulted in convictions.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: I will, with permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT, a table showing, for England and Wales, the number of persons prosecuted and the number convicted in each year.

Mr. Page: Whilst realising that I cannot make very informed comments on that Answer, may I ask whether the hon. Gentleman is satisfied that everything is being done to make use of existing legislation so that the despoiling of the countryside with litter does not continue at the present rate?

Mr. Morgan: Yes, I am satisfied that the Act referred to is adequate. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the powers in the Civic Amenities Act, 1967, in relation to this matter.

Following is the table:



Persons prosecuted
Persons convicted


1958 (from 7th August when the Litter Act 1958 came into force)
268
262


1959
2,450
2,370


1960
2,599
2,527


1961
2,395
2,322


1962
2,530
2,457


1963
2,736
2,648


1964
2,984
2,866


1965
2,914
2,803


1966
2,773
2,670


1967
2,962
2,851



24,611
23,776

Immigrants (Employment Vouchers)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of the number of immigrants and their dependants admitted to the United Kingdom last month, he will now stop the issue of all further work permits for immigrants.

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of last month's immigration figures, he will curb immigration until the present scarcity of houses, schools and hospitals has been overcome; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan): No. Sir. The number of employment vouchers issued is already closely controlled. Since April of this year their issue has been strictly related to the country's economic and social needs.
The great majority of immigrants now arriving are dependants joining heads of families here.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that places like Birmingham, Bradford and Ealing are saying that they cannot take any more immigrants, because they are full? Would not it be better to stop all further work permits to get the situation under control, because, if we do not, we shall have an explosion in this country.

Mr. Callaghan: The situation is under control. The work vouchers issued are basically issued in relation to the category "A" vouchers on the application of employers in Birmingham and elsewhere for persons to come

to specified jobs. Therefore, the matter is not out of control. The Government have limited the total number of vouchers, but employers are asking for these people to come.

Mr. John Hall: Does the Minister agree that there are far more dependants coming over now than there are work permit holders? Is there not a case, as a purely temporary measure until we have examined the problems involved in the immigration influx, to call a temporary halt to all immigration?

Mr. Callaghan: No. I think that would cause a disproportionate amount of distress to the families involved. An urgent examination of the problem is being made, and I have undertaken to inform the House of the Government's conclusions as early as possible.

Mr. Hogg: The original Question related to vouchers. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider issuing more information about how they are broken down into different kinds of jobs and to whom they are issued? I feel—and I hope the right hon Gentleman will agree—that we need more information about it.

Mr. Callaghan: I will certainly consider that. It is for my right hon. Friend the First Secretary to issue this information. Her predecessor made a full statement about it in February. It is not generally recognised how far the initiative for bringing people here under work vouchers begins in this country. I will certainly see that full information is made available.

Immigrants (Dependants)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to set up a register in which all immigrants residing in the United Kingdom would be asked to enter claims they have to wives or children still residing overseas and to arrange that such a register shall be closed in six months' time.

Sir D. Renton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will ask all male Commonwealth immigrants over the age of 21 years on their arrival in the United Kingdom to state the names, addresses and ages of dependants or further dependants


whom they wish to join them in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Callaghan: The compilation of a register of dependants was attempted in 1965 but found to be of little practical value. Nevertheless I am having the matter examined again to see if such a system can be introduced.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that sympathetic response. Will he bear in mind that a register would give immigration officers something to work on, towns like Birmingham and Bradford would know the number of immigrants to expect in future, and the matter would then be brought under control?

Mr. Callaghan: If the register was accurate and was maintained accurately, I have no doubt that that would be so, but there were practical difficulties last time. I would not want to foreshadow now that it would be possible to introduce it, but it would be much more administratively convenient if we did so, and it would do no harm to anybody who seeks to come here. That is why I am considering whether it is possible to overcome the administrative difficulties.

Sir D. Renton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what is worrying people more than anything else is the open-ended commitment to admit a large and unspecified number of dependants, and would not the suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) and myself enable that commitment to be first measured, and then limited, in addition to helping to stop evasion?

Mr. Callaghan: That is an exaggeration of the position. A number of dependants have not yet joined the breadwinner who, because he came in before 1962, was not registered. Since then there has been control and the number of vouchers issued each year has steadily declined. Once the backlog has been worked off it will be possible, on the basis of the average size of a family, to say how many will be coming here.

Mr. Mapp: Is my hon. Friend aware that a declaration of family responsibility by voucher holders already here, and voucher holders who will be coming here in future, would be a considerable

asset to his Department in arranging that sort of thing? Will my right hon. Friend promise to look sympathetically at the principle of that suggestion?

Mr. Callaghan: That is exactly why I am having the matter re-examined. I recognise the advantages of having a register if we can get one. That is why I said in my original reply that I am looking into the matter with great care.

Mr. Gurden: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has now made of the number of immigrant children to be allowed into Great Britain as dependants during the next three months, in order that local authorities may be enabled to plan to provide educational and other facilities.

Mr. Callaghan: It is not possible to give a reliable estimate.

Mr. Gurden: As it is the Government's policy to keep an open door for all dependants, does not the right hon. Gentleman have a responsibility to let local authorities know just what the commitments are to enable them to meet their statutory obligations with regard to services such as education and welfare?

Mr. Callaghan: If I understand it aright, it is the policy of the House of Commons, including the Conservative Party, to allow dependants to come here. The hon. Gentleman may dissociate himself from his party, but that has been the view and the policy of both parties in this country. I believe that it is humane and civilised and that we should maintain the right of dependants to join the breadwinners in this country. Once the backlog has been worked off, we shall be able to determine much more accurately what is likely to be the number of children arriving. I asked specifically what is the number involved, in view of the rather emotive phrase "open door." The number of children arriving over the last six months has been going down. Last October it was 3,835. That was the first of the months for which I asked. In March it was 2,661, which was 1,200 fewer.

Mr. Victor Yates: Is my right hon. Friend aware that although priorities have been offered to the city of Birmingham, the council has not applied for any


additional building in recent times? Does not that attitude smack of humbug and hypocrisy?

Mr. Callaghan: Officials of the Home Office are in touch with the city of Birmingham at the moment. I shall wait with interest to see what practical proposals the council puts forward for dealing with this matter.

Mr. Hogg: I understand that it is the official policy of the Labour Party to keep these matters out of party politics, which hardly seams to be the tenor of the last supplementary question. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will answer this supplementary question, which is not unkindly meant: does he realise that a great deal of the anxiety revolves around abuse, namely, suppositious relatives coming in under a false guise, and will he constantly attend to the question of how to prevent impersonations and fraud?

Mr. Callaghan: I am aware that there is a widespread belief that evasions are practised. I can only say that the investigations which I carry out show that a great many of the intended evasions are prevented, and they do not enter the country where there is an attempt at evasion. Clearly this will go on. People want to come to this country. The attempts to evade will continue, but I do not at the moment believe that there is a great deal of evasion, although there is no doubt that there are many attempts at it.

Mr. Christopher Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the recent demand of the Birmingham City Council to keep all immigrants of this kind out of Birmingham is totally impracticable? Is my right hon. Friend also aware that this is part of a politically motivated campaign, and will he call on the official Opposition to dissociate themselves from it?

Mr. Callaghan: I think that that question was not addressed to me. At any rate, it bounced over my head on to the benches opposite. I am waiting to hear what proposals Birmingham City Council has to put forward which are practical and which can be carried out in a free society such as we have.

Mr. Biffen: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what

estimates he has made of the number of dependants who are entitled to entry under the present Commonwealth Immigration Act, but who have not yet availed themselves of such entitlement.

Mr. Callaghan: The average rate of settlement from both old and new Commonwealth countries since the Commonwealth immigration control was introduced has been 57,000 annually. There is a backlog of dependants who have not yet joined the men who were admitted before the passing of the 1962 Act as well as the families of those admitted since the Act. In the light of the drastic cut in the issue of work vouchers as well as other restrictions enforced in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 1968, the numbers entering for settlement will begin to fall when the arrears have been overtaken. But it is not possible to make a reliable estimate as to how many will seek to enter the United Kingdom in a particular year.

Mr. Biffen: In view of the rational and dispassionate basis on which the right hon. Gentleman wants this subject discussed—I refer to his answer to a supplementary question on Question No. 17—does he not think that that spirit would be very considerably enhanced if this information were made available? Will he commission a study to obtain a general guide as to the extent of the present commitment?

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, Sir. I have, in fact, instituted recently at London Airport a new series of questions to try to determine how dependents are now arriving, related both to the work vouchers now being issued, to those issued since 1962 and those issued before 1962. It will be only by a process of extrapolation that I shall be able to make deductions from that.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the figure is too high? What steps does he propose to take to reduce it?

Mr. Callaghan: That question has been debated many times. It is the policy of both sides that dependants should not be prevented from joining the breadwinner; and at present they are the overwhelming majority of people arriving here.

Burglar Alarms

Mr. Eadie: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what suggestions he has received from police in the Metropolitan area regarding the installation of burglar alarms; and if he will make a statement;
(2) what plans he has to introduce standards of approval regarding the manufacturing and marketing of burglar alarms.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: The answer to each is "None, Sir"; but I understand that the British Standards Institution is preparing a standard for silent and audible alarms and the Home Office Standing Committee on Crime Prevention has also arranged for a study to be made of intruder alarms. The Metropolitan police are taking part in these studies, and full-time crime prevention officers in the force are available to advise users of alarms.

Mr. Eadie: Would not my hon. Friend agree that his reply gives the impression that he is treating the matter a little lightheartedly? When he replied to a previous Question which I put to him, he said that in the Metropolitan area alone in two months there were about 10,500 false calls. Does not that show that the matter should be dealt with with a little more expedition than I gather is the case from what my hon. Friend said?

Mr. Morgan: I agree that inevitably a high percentage of these alarm calls are false. I remind my hon. Friend that for more than four years the British Standards Institution has been working on intruder alarms in buildings. On 21st May of this year a B.S.I. technical committee, on which the police are represented, is expected to approve for publication a standard dealing with various matters.

Mr. Masashi Nii

Mr. Dickens: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why Mr. Masashi Nii, of Hiroshima, Japan, was subjected to personal abuse by immigration officers on his arrival in Dover from Ostend on 28th March.

Mr. Ennals: My inquiries in no way confirm my hon. Friend's allegation.

Mr. Dickens: Is my hon. Friend aware that Mr. Nii, who is a pacifist and an atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima, was coming here to attend a non-violent annual demonstration by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament? Is my hon. Friend further aware that since that fact was known to the immigration officers at Dover they adopted an attitude of gross personal abuse towards Mr. Nii? Will my hon. Friend take steps to ensure that immigration officers at all points of arrival are told forthwith that their private personal views must in no way be allowed to interfere with the discharge of their duties?

Mr. Ennals: My hon. Friend's allegations are quite unfounded—

Mr. Dickens: They are not.

Mr. Ennals: Mr. Nii arrived in the very early hours of the morning. He said that he wished to say here for three months. He had on him only a very limited amount of funds and it was necessary to make inquiries. He was admitted for a month—

Mr. Dickens: There was personal abuse.

Mr. Ennals: May I explain to my hon. Friend? After the few hours in which Mr. Nii had slept while waiting for a decision to be taken, as it was in the reasonably early hours, he expressed his appreciation to the immigration officers for the courtesy which had been shown to him.

Mr. Carlisle: Is it not unfortunate that unfounded remarks of this kind—

Mr. Dickens: They are not unfounded.

Mr. Carlisle: —should be made by hon. Members, since they can do nothing but harm to the general position of the immigration authorities?

Mr. Ennals: I naturally regret any allegations made against civil servants who are trying to do what is often a difficult job, and I am satisfied that, in the circumstances of this case, there was no reason for these allegations.

Mr. Dickens: On a point of order. In view of the totally unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I give notice now that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment as soon as I can.

Stolen Vehicles

Mr. Weatherill: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to issue traffic wardens with a list of stolen vehicles in order to help the police in their recovery.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: This is a matter for chief officers of police, but I understand that traffic wardens are commonly asked to look out for stolen vehicles of particular interest to the police.

Mr. Weatherill: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a car which had been stolen four months previously was recently found in, I think, Ovington Gardens with no fewer than seven parking tickets attached to it? Would it not greatly enhance the public image of traffic wardens if they could assist the police to trace stolen vehicles, and do it quickly?

Mr. Morgan: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the danger in logic or arguing from the particular to the general. There is no national list of vehicles reported stolen. If such a list were compiled, it would be a very long one and it would be impractical to issue it to each traffic warden. However, where vehicles connected with very serious crime are urgently required to be traced by the police, traffic wardens are called in to help.

Mr. Paget: Is my hon. Friend aware that it may be of some convenience to the owner who has had his car stolen to receive notice of where it had been parked?

Immigration Officers (Representations)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the result of his inquiry into the representations by immigration officers regarding difficulties experienced by them in the course of their duties.

Mr. Callaghan: The representations made by the immigration officers did not reveal any methods of evasion that were not already known. But they did highlight the tenacity of some of the would-be evaders and the difficulties which confront immigration officers in dealing with them. Nevertheless the immigration officers understand the need for the most scruplous fairness in dealing with would-be immigrants.

Mr. Shinwell: But when this incident occurred, was it not alleged against these immigration officers that they had behaved irregularly? What was the irregularity? If there was none, why was there such a fuss over it?

Mr. Callaghan: At the moment, a series of disciplinary charges are being investigated and I hope that the House will not press me on this matter, in which there is a regular, authorised and agreed procedure for dealing with disciplinary questions of this sort.

Sir D. Renton: While accepting what the right hon. Gentleman said, may I ask whether he will give an undertaking that, as no State secrets were involved, no one will be punished for blurting out the truth? [HON. MEMBERS: "Disgraceful."]

Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is asking me to do what I have already declined to do. Since there is at the moment a proper procedure for investigating disciplinary charges, it would be improper for me to say now either that people would be punished or that they would be exonerated.

Immigrant Areas (Economic Aid)

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps have been taken by the Government, and will be taken, to give extra-economic aid to those areas of the country with a special immigrant problem.

Mr. Winnick: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action is now being taken to give further aid to areas in Great Britain with a large immigrant population.

Mr. Lipton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what Government aid is given to local authorities with immigrant problems.

Mr. Eyre: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give details of the new urban programme of Government expenditure to assist local authorities where the immigration problem is substantial; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Callaghan: In addition to grants already payable, a sum amounting to nearly £1½ million has been paid out


in advance of final claims for 1967–68 under Section 11 of the Local Government Act, 1966. As the House knows, the Government are urgently studying the programme of expenditure in urban areas of special need, including those which contain substantial numbers of immigrants. I will give further details when this study has been completed.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Will the right hon. Gentleman not undertake, in conjunction with other Ministerial colleagues, to draw up a five-year plan for aid to areas with a particular immigrant problem and publish it as a White Paper?

Mr. Callaghan: I will consider this, of course, but the inquiry is now in its early stages and I would prefer to maintain freedom of action as to the nature and form in which the results should be published.

Mr. Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us who deplore the incitement to hatred speech of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell)—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—he has some supporters over there—are well aware of the strains and difficulties in some of the overcrowded areas? Would he not agree that, apart from special aid, one of the most effective solutions in such areas would be a more even distribution of industry throughout the country, a policy, of course, which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West seems to oppose?

Mr. Callaghan: As I have said in a previous Answer, it is employers, mainly, who begin the procedure by which immigrants go to particular areas for jobs. I agree that the important thing in this matter and the approach which I hope will be made to it is that no children, whether born in this country or arriving here, will be denied the right to education and schooling because of overcrowding in schools, or denied the right to homes. If we start looking at the problem from that end, the other parts will be made to fall into place.

Mr. Lipton: Can my right hon. Friend say how much of the aid already allocated has reached the London Borough of Lambeth, bearing in mind that I introduced a deputation from the borough to the Colonial Office in 1955, pointing out the various steps which the Government

at that time should take to deal with what has developed into a difficult problem?

Mr. Callaghan: The figure for Lambeth was published last week in HANSARD, but I regret to say that I do not carry it in my head.

Mr. Eyre: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that every day there is further evidence of the increasing problems in the reception areas, such as Birmingham? Will he bear this seriously in mind in determining the urgency of his review?

Mr. Callaghan: Certainly, Sir. I do not intend that this review should take months. Officials are working very rapidly. Each Department mainly concerned is working in association with the Home Office on this problem. Although I naturally would not give a guarantee, I hope to make a reasonably early report to the House.

Mr. John Fraser: Will my right hon. Friend recognise that good will, commonsense and tolerance are as valuable as money, and that no amount of money can undo the harm done by bigoted and prejudiced speeches by people who ought to know better?

Mr. Callaghan: There is a danger that this problem will get out of focus, and, as I study it closely, I see that, while there are great problems involved, the emotional overtones sometimes exaggerate those problems beyond their true merit.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Since the right hon. Gentleman accepts the principle that additional aid should be given to those areas which fall below certain standards due to the influx of immigrants, would he consider whether during the passage through the House of the Race Relations Bill he could not introduce some steps in it to help to meet the problem?

Mr. Callaghan: The problem of how, under the law, we treat immigrants who are living in this country, and, indeed, those of second and third generation of a particular colour, is not closely related to the short-term problem which I am now considering to see what extra financial assistance shall be given to these areas.

Mr. Montgomery: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department


what was the amount paid last year to the County Borough of Wolverhampton under the scheme to financially assist local authorities with special immigrant problems.

Mr. Ennals: Wolverhampton County Borough submitted a claim in respect of expenditure of £65,643 in 1967–68, of which 50 per cent. is reimbursable by Exchequer grant. Grant of £29,539 has so far been paid.

Mr. Montgomery: Would not the Under-Secretary admit that this is really inadequate for the needs of Wolverhampton? When the Home Office is looking at the whole question of this grant, will it be more realistic, since the hon. Gentleman will surely agree that the way to get rid of tension in these areas is to provide more houses and school places? Would he agree that the Government must give more help to areas with this problem?

Mr. Ennals: To answer the first part of that supplementary question, I understand that the Wolverhampton Council—which, of course, decides on the extent of appointments to deal with this problem—has estimated that its expenditure in 1968–69 will be substantially higher, and in that case the grant from the Home Office will also be substantially higher. To answer the second part of the supplementary question, I assure the hon. Gentleman that in the study to which reference has already been made by my right hon. Friend any special needs will be given special consideration.

Mr. Whitaker: Would my hon. Friend agree that special aid should be given to areas with bad housing and educational problems irrespective of immigration and that immigrants should not be used as a scapegoat for social problems which have always existed?

Mr. Ennals: That is absolutely right. In the urban programme referred to by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary we are looking at special urban problems. In some cases these are areas with a substantial proportion of immigrants but this is not necessarily so, as my hon. Friend rightly points out.

Immigration Policy

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will formulate an immi-

gration policy for Great Britain which will cover both aliens and Commonwealth citizens.

Miss Lestor: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will review the whole question of immigration policy with particular reference to the conditions under which aliens are admitted into this country.

Mr. Callaghan: There is a continuous review of all aspects of immigration policy, including the numbers admitted. The immigration of aliens and Commonwealth citizens follows different patterns and presents different problems, and at present separate methods of control are best.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: As this distinction between Commonwealth citizens and aliens is rapidly becoming obsolete, will the right hon. Gentleman set up a study group to develop an overall immigration policy in accordance with our economic needs and social capabilities?

Mr. Callaghan: To answer the first part of that supplementary question, I would not agree with the hon. Gentleman. It seems to me that the problems of aliens coming from the Continent of Europe, which has a well developed industrial structure, are very different from the problems of would-be immigrants from the West Indies, for whom we have had responsibility for 300 years. It is for that reason, among others, that I think that the problem should be looked at separately.
To answer the second part, the determination of a long-term policy, I hope very much that if we get a Select Committee, or what other form a Committee of the House of Commons will take, this will be one of the matters it will consider.

Mr. Rose: In view of the popular misconception assiduously fostered by some hon. Gentlemen opposite, would my right hon. Friend confirm that more vouchers were granted to aliens last year and that more people left these shores than came in, so that this gives the lie to stories about an overcrowded island and open-ended commitments?

Mr. Callaghan: Work permits are issued on a different basis. A number are issued for a shortish period and


therefore it is not possible to make the exact comparison which my hon. Friend would like me to make.

Mr. Hogg: Will the right hon. Gentleman look again at the original Questions, which emanated one from the benches opposite and one from the Opposition? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the difficulty resides not in the different circumstances which may or may not exist between the developed and undeveloped countries but in the different status which different independent countries have for their citizens and the different codes applicable to people extrinsic to this country but occupying a different status, of which there are at least three between one another? Does he not see the advantage of amalgamating the different codes of law into one code which all people can understand?

Mr. Callaghan: I was careful in my reply to say that at present I think that separate methods of control are best. That is not to say, however, that that would be true for all time. I should be happy to see the problem examined on a rational and dispassionate basis to see whether a better basis could be devised.

Police (Selection of Recruits)

Mr. Peter M. Jackson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance he has given local police authorities in respect of the recruitment of police officers with previous criminal records.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: None, Sir. The Police Regulations provide that a candidate must produce satisfactory references as to character. Subject to the Regulations, the selection of recruits is a matter for the chief officer of the force concerned.

Mr. Jackson: Would my hon. Friend explain why, in the face of his Answer, an officer was appointed to the Sheffield and Rotherham Police Force who had previously served with the Huddersfield Police Force until he left after having been found guilty of assault? Is he aware that this officer is now in prison following a further conviction for assault?

Mr. Morgan: I am aware of some of the facts referred to by my hon. Friend.

In view of what he said about the imprisonment of this officer, I will investigate the matter most thoroughly and write to him.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will the hon. Gentleman use what influence he may have in the Government to ensure that if a previous criminal conviction is a ban to entry into the police force, it should also be a ban to entry into the present Government?

Mr. Morgan: I am not aware of the exact type of innuendo which the hon. Gentleman is pressing. The regulations do not specifically prohibit the engagement of a person as a police officer who has a criminal conviction. While a criminal conviction would tend to act against a candidate, other matters, such as the candidate's age and the nature of the offence, would be taken into account.

Motor Vehicles (Tyres)

Mr. Galbraith: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measuring instrument will be available to the police in connection with the new regulations that the tread on the tyres of motor vehicles should not be less than 1 millimetre thick.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: Several different types of gauge are available. The exercise of choice between one type and another is a matter for police authorities and chief officers of police.

Mr. Galbraith: Would it not be better to have some uniformity in this matter so that the public might acquire one of these instruments and be able to test tyres themselves before going out in their motor cars?

Mr. Morgan: No, Sir. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Home Office provides some equipment, such as radar meters and wireless sets, but the option is still with the forces to decide whether or not to obtain equipment from the Home Office or direct from the supplier. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is for once not pressing the case for private enterprise.

Mr. Heffer: Is it not commonsense that there should be one instrument available for the public to use since the position


at present is exceedingly confusing? Will my hon. Friend see that something is done about this, and rapidly?

Mr. Morgan: The law must be applied in a uniform way. The police authorities decide what equipment to provide for their forces. The Secretary of State can intervene only if the scale, type or quality of the equipment is conducive to inefficiency or if he has special statutory powers.

Illegal Immigrants

Mr. Montgomery: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for reports from chief constables on action being taken against the organisers of the traffic in illegal immigrants.

Mr. Callaghan: Chief officers of police are doing all they can, in co-operation with the immigration service, to enforce the law.

Mr. Montgomery: Is the Home Secretary aware that some people seem to be making a good deal of money out of this racket? Surely there is some evidence as to the people behind this racket and some steps could be taken to bring them to court?

Mr. Callaghan: If there is sufficient evidence to bring anyone to court it will of course be used, but a number of organisers of the traffic might be overseas and then the problem is not easy. We have to try to detect it at the ports. I assure the hon. Member that a lot of information recently published as disclosures is well known to those at the Home Office who are administering these controls and they have taken counteraction.

Mr. Fortescue: In the name of humanity, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to introduce much tighter controls through the British diplomatic missions in other countries so that those who claim to be wives of immigrants and want to come here are not sent back?

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, I would not wish to see anyone embark to come to this country until it is clear that they will be admitted, but it cannot be enforced in other countries. The whole weight of our persuasive machinery is bent to

achieve that, but we have no sovereign rights in other countries and we cannot prevent anyone leaving another country.

Sir Richard Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider introducing legislation to enable illegal immigrants to be deported on the grounds of their illegal entry within a period of 12 months from their arrival in Great Britain.

Mr. Callaghan: The Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 1968, strengthened the provision for dealing with illegal entry to this country. An illegal immigrant may be examined by an immigration officer at any time within 28 days of his entry and may then be refused admission. In addition, as explained in column 1658 of HANSARD for 28th February last, an illegal immigrant remains liable to prosecution for six months and, if convicted, to deportation.

Sir Richard Glyn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is growing anxiety in this country about the reported increase in the number of illegal immigrants? Does he agree that it is in the best interests of persons legally resident in Britain that illegal immigrants should be deported as and where they are detected and regardless of nationality or such considerations as their colour?

Mr. Callaghan: My conclusion is that the anxiety, which is real, is greater than the evidence which exists. There are many allegations, but every one where there is evidence is followed up and appropriate action taken, and the law comes into force if it is necessary for action to be taken. If the hon. Gentleman has genuine evidence to offer me, I shall be very glad indeed to have it investigated.

Mr. Richard: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many hon. Members on this side of the House and people in the country believe that although it is necessary perhaps to be strict about dependents coming in, nevertheless these regulations should be administered with a great deal of humanity? Is he aware that many of us find it extremely difficult to understand the blood lust which comes from some hon. Members opposite at the prospect of 14-year-old boys escaping the net?

Mr. Callaghan: There is, of course, a balance to be drawn here between observance of the law which Parliament has passed and the claims on our behaviour of human treatment in regard to individual citizens. I believe that the immigration officers of the Home Office are holding that balance as well as they can.

Civil Defence (Communications Equipment)

Sir D. Renton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to ensure that local authorities will in future have sufficient trained staff with knowledge of the complicated civil defence communications equipment which is to be kept on a care and maintenance basis, and the experience and opportunities to train other people to help them to operate such equipment in an emergency.

Mr. Ennals: Most of the line communications and much of the radio equipment for civil defence are similar to equipment in normal peace-time use. We are discussing with local authorities how knowledge and experience of communications as well as other civil defence matters can best be maintained.

Sir D. Renton: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that on the funds at present proposed by the Government the equipment may not be kept ready for use in an emergency? Neither will there be experts to deal with it if an emergency comes. Will the hon. Gentleman have second thoughts about this?

Mr. Ennals: I have explained to the House and to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the facilities which exist in the Home Office Defence Training School at Easingwold. In the courses we run there there will be opportunities for local government personnel to take part. These will include signals matters and the use of other equipment.

Dangerous Drugs

Mr. Carlisle: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in the light of the decision in the recent case of Warner versus Metropolitan Police Commissioner, he will introduce legislation to amend the law

relating to the possession of dangerous drugs.

Mr. Callaghan: I am instituting, in conjunction with the Law Commission, a full examination of the law relating to possession of drugs. I shall consider the need for legislation when this review is complete and I have also received the report of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence on cannabis.

Mr. Carlisle: I am most grateful to the Home Secretary for that Answer. Will he bear in mind in making that inquiry that a great many hon. Members on both sides of the House deplore the introduction of criminal offences which are absolute in their terms and which lay people open to special penalty without even the necessity of proving that they know they are committing an offence?

Mr. Callaghan: It is because of my concern about what seems to have been happening recently that I decided that the time had come to make a review of this sort. I am grateful to the hon. Member for what he has said.

Mr. Hogg: We welcome the review which the right hon. Gentleman has announced. Will he draw the attention of the Law Commission to the fact that this problem is not limited to drug offences but to a wide range of offences which purport to be absolute in other fields?

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, Sir. I am sure the Law Commission will take that into account. I am asking it specifically on the subject of drugs to work in conjunction with the Home Office, but I realise that the problem of absolute offences goes much wider.

RHODESIA

Mr. Winnick: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the latest position on Rhodesia.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I have nothing to add to the Answers I gave to Questions on 9th May.—[Vol. 764, c. 614–5.]

Mr. Winnick: Would not the Prime Minister agree that the recent statement by Smith that there can be no majority


rule in Rhodesia for a hundred years makes a mockery of any proposals brought back from Rhodesia by the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home)? In view of the continued fighting in Rhodesia, is not even the illegal régime's law and order now breaking down?

The Prime Minister: I have already commented in this House on the statement made by Mr. Smith in the Sunday Telegraph. It suggests, if we are to take those words at their face value, that he rejects the whole concept of the six principles on which not only Her Majesty's Government but the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) was insisting in his visit.

Mr. Heath: The Prime Minister will no doubt have seen reports in the Press today that Rhodesian citizens holding Rhodesian travel documents were issued with British passports enabling them to travel and train as terrorists. Will he inquire into this to see whether there is truth in it?

The Prime Minister: Yes, certainly. I have only the Press reports to guide me, but they are important and serious Press reports. They should be taken seriously, and they will be. On the information available—and this seems to be in the newspaper report itself—it seems that these were Rhodesian citizens who were allowed out of Rhodesia on the authority of the régime itself with documents issued by the régime, so presumably they thought there was nothing suspicious about them. It would seem that, as is usually the case, these post-U.D.I. passports were automatically exchanged for British passports at the High Commissions concerned, but certainly this will be inquired into very rigorously.

Mr. Hooley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many distinguished and responsible heads of African States are being forced to the reluctant conclusion that the only remedy for tyranny and oppression of Africans in central Africa is becoming organised guerrilla warfare? Does he agree that unless this Government take more rigorous and definite steps to organise the international community to put down the Rhodesian re-

bellion there will be a disastrous race war in Southern Africa?

The Prime Minister: It has been the position of most Heads of State, certainly of Commonwealth African countries from the beginning, that this problem could be solved only by the use of force by Her Majesty's Government. That has been their position and they have continually expressed it. As my hon. Friend knows, we do not share that view. It is not, I think, right to say that they themselves are in any way involved in internal fighting in Rhodesia. As to the last part of the question about organising the international community, I think my hon. Friend is aware of the resolution we have tabled at the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: In view of the Government's selection of Sir Frederick Crawford, Mr. Harper and others for oppressive and vindictive treatment, may I ask whether the Prime Minister realises that it is widely considered that to be on their black list will be a signal honour?

The Prime Minister: In the eyes of the hon. Member certainly, because he has consistently supported the illegal régime against the principles of the rule of law.

CHELMSLEY WOOD (DEPARTMENTAL SERVICES)

Mr. Speed: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the departments of Housing, Education, Health and Social Security in the provision of services in Chelmsley Wood, in view of the special nature and record speed of this development.

The Prime Minister: The main responsibility for the provision of, and the co-ordination of, services at Chelmsley Wood rests with the Birmingham, Warwickshire and Meriden Councils. In so far as my right hon. Friends are concerned, for example through the giving of approval or loan sanction for certain services, they of course consult together and with the local authorities as necessary.

Mr. Speed: I thank the Prime Minister for that reply. Will he confirm that, in


so far as the Government have a responsibility, the provision of essential supporting services such as schools, clinics, and open spaces will receive exactly the same priority as the large number of houses now being built?

The Prime Minister: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who knows this area far better than I do, that there is a special difficulty here, namely, the building of a very large number of houses by Birmingham in the area of another council. I have the same experience in my own constituency. I know the very difficulty he has mentioned where houses are built but other services do not always keep up with the provision of the houses. My right hon. Friends will certainly cooperate in this matter, though the initiative lies with the councils concerned.

Mr. Christopher Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the necessary concomitant of the reorganisation of local government social services is the reorganisation of central government social service departments? When will the amalgamation of the Ministeries of Health and Social Security and other Ministries take place?

The Prime Minister: That is going forward, though, as my hon. Friend knows, we are waiting for the consideration which must be given to the Seebohm Report. In the case referred to in the original Question, it is more a matter of the co-ordination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Department of Education and Science, the Ministry of Transport and other Departments which are not involved in that particular merger. For the rest, my hon. Friend will be aware that we are awaiting the Report of the Royal Commission.

NIGERIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Mr. Rose: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on his talks with representatives of the Nigerian Federal Government.

Mr. Barnes: asked the Prime Minister what discussions he had with Dr. Arikpo, the representative of the Nigerian Federal Government, regarding the continuing supply of British arms.

Mr. James Johnson: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement upon his discussions with Dr. Arikpo, representing the Federal Government of Nigeria, about future help in the matter of arms and ammunition.

The Prime Minister: The long and useful talks which my right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary and I had with Dr. Arikpo on 24th April centred largely on the prospects for ending the war. Arms supplies were not discussed. In the course of the talks we once again stressed Her Majesty's Government's support for a negotiated settlement and for the earliest possible peace talks. The whole House will, I know, share my pleasure that the subsequent talks between representatives of the two sides, with the help of the Commonwealth Secretary-General, have been successful and that peace talks are to start soon.

Mr. Rose: I welcome the initiative taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Does my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister accept that the most effective way of hastening a peace settlement in this area would be to curtail the supply of arms to one side in the struggle? Would he reconsider the Government's current policy in the light of these peace initiatives that are now being taken?

The Prime Minister: I think that we had better let the two sides now get on with the peace talks which, after enormous difficulty, but very much with our help, they have agreed should take place. There have been some very exaggerated accounts about our arms supplies. We have been held responsible for supplying aerial bombs, for example. We have supplied none.

Mr. Barnes: Does not the Prime Minister agree that this war has now reached a level of brutality where the earliest possible cease-fire must be the overriding priority? What possible justification can there be for Britain to go on feeding arms into the war on the one hand when we are trying to stop it with the other?

The Prime Minister: The earliest possible cease-fire has been our aim from the beginning. Indeed, before the fighting broke out, we used all our influence, as


did many other Commonwealth Governments, to prevent it from breaking out. Our supplying of arms has been limited to the normal arms we have supplied in the past to the Federal Government. Now that talks have started, I do not think that we could pursue this matter with any great hope of influencing the situation.

Mr. Johnson: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been called to an article by Mr. Forsyth which appeared in the Sunday Times last Sunday? Will not my right hon. Friend think again about a moratorium, at least while the peace talks are going on in Kampala, because this would give Biafra the impression, which it does not have now, that we are as between the two sides impartial?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend will recognise the difficulties here, where there is a Federal Government and a break-away or attempted break-away, or purported break-away, by one part of it. We have had very great difficulties in handling this situation, but we have encouraged at all points the Secretary-General to pursue his peace-making activities; and in my own talks with Dr. Arikpo we very strongly pressed him to make it clear—there had been some public doubt about this—that he was willing to go to the conference table. Now they are going.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the Prime Minister aware that the whole House hopes that these talks will bring to an end this tragic war with a member State of the Commonwealth? Can he tell the House whether arms are still being supplied to one side in this civil war, or whether it is the intention of the Government to supply them? Since one of the fundamental concepts of the modern Commonwealth is that we do not interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign members of the Commonwealth, what possible justification is there for supplying arms to one side in a civil war?

The Prime Minister: The position about arms supplies is exactly as I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have described it on a number of occasions. We have continued the supply—not the Government; I mean that we have allowed the continuance of supply of aims by private manufacturers in

this country exactly on the basis that it has been in the past, but there has been no special provision for the needs of the war. As I have said, we have refused to supply arms of a kind, such as bombs and other things which we were asked for, which were required, or considered to, be required, for this war.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: May I, while congratulating my right hon. Friend on his efforts to bring the war to an end, ask him to recall that in similar disputes in the past and in similar situations the stoppage of arms has sometimes proved decisive in favour of peace?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, but not always in the case where there is a Commonwealth Government whom we recognise and where there is an attempted break-away or civil war within the jurisdiction of that Government whom we recognise. [Interruption.] This is too serious a matter, even for the hon. Gentleman's misplaced sense of humour. We have been consistent throughout in trying to get these two parties to the conference table. The supply of arms, including some much more devastating arms than the type we have been supplying, has been going on to both sides from a large number of countries and Governments. We have had no part in that.

Sir J. Eden: Has not this war now reached the stage of genocide? Does not the Prime Minister agree that it would further the cause of peace and serve this country's best interests if Her Majesty's Government were to have nothing more to do with the supply of any arms?

The Prime Minister: If we had taken that view, it would have been taking sides in that particular dispute. Certainly I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this war has reached a state of great brutality, as modern warfare always does. That is why, both in our arms policy and in other ways, we have sought to use all our influence to bring the two sides to the conference table, and particularly to use our influence against any danger that following a settlement there might be tribal disturbances, tribal massacres, or anything of that kind. I am sure that it would be the view of the whole House that this is what we should be doing.

Mr. Heath: If Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to stop the supply


of arms to the Federal Government immediately, would they be prepared to take an initiative to try to get a scaling down of the supply of arms to both sides from all sources, now that we know that the talks are to start? We all welcome the fact that talks are to start.

The Prime Minister: I agree with the Leader of the Opposition about welcoming the talks. We have tried to get a stoppage of arms supplies on a much wider scale. One of the difficulties here is that it is not only a question of governmental controls. A great deal of private traffic in second-hand arms has been going on, with a lot of money changing hands. The right hon. Gentleman will know that some well-known international mecenaries have been involved in this fighting as well. It would be practically impossible to stop this by any kind of international inter-governmental action. We have used our position, including our arms supply, to try to bring the two sides to the conference table.

Mr. James Griffiths: Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the major difficulties in bringing this civil war to an end is the fear of the Ibo people, not without some reason, that the policy of the Federal Government is to destroy them as a people? Will my right hon. Friend seek to influence the Federal Government to make a very firm statement that there is a place for the Ibo people in Nigeria?

The Prime Minister: Yes; my right hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he is asking about. I obviously have to choose my words rather carefully here, because getting the two sides to the conference table has been very difficult. That was what I had in mind in answering the question asked by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden). As I have said, there is a fear of a massacre, even after fighting officially ceases. We have used our influence in many directions to ensure that that danger is reduced to nil. I was extremely reassured by what Dr. Arikpo said to me on this whole question and by the forthcoming attitude of the Federal Government to the idea of talks. That is why we are glad that following the statement here which Dr. Arikpo made after talks with me, the two sides are now to go to the conference table in Kampala.

Mr. Thorpe: May I press the Prime Minister further? In reply to me he said

that private firms were being allowed to continue to supply arms on the usual terms, and that this process had done something to bring the parties to the conference table. Is not he aware that there is a totally new situation, that there is a civil war in which Nigerians are shooting Nigerians, and one side happens to be supplied with British arms? Surely, this is making it more difficult for us to take an initiative in settling peace and intervening in the internal affars of Nigeria?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman's understandable heat does not correspond with the facts of what we have been doing to get the parties together. As I have said, the position is that arms contracts have been placed in the past by the Government of Nigeria, and arms have been continuing to be supplied by some of our manufacturers. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman wants to query the fact that this is the Government of Nigeria, and that arms are being supplied by all kinds of countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain to both sides. We have confined our supplies to the traditional arms supplies which would have been bought elsewhere if we had not supplied them, and we have in consequence been able to exert some influence on the road to the peace talks because of what we have done.

Mr. Paget: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the reports that indicate that the Nigerian Federal Army has ceased to be under the control of the Nigerian Federal Government, that it is ignoring its orders and is involved in what has been referred to as open genocide of the Ibos? In those circumstances, is not this the moment to try to initiate international action to stop this?

The Prime Minister: In this kind of war and in this kind of territory, I am afraid that there is always the possibility that my hon. and learned Friend has mentioned, that orders of the responsible Government are not fully carried out. It was our concern about this, about possible massacres, about possible genocide, which led to some of the talks and some of the representations we have made. I want to make it quite clear to my hon. and learned Friend that any change in our policy of arms supply, which has been on a very restrictive scale, would have done nothing either to bring the


parties to the conference table or to stop the kind of indiscipline on both sides to which he refers.
Our efforts were directed to bringing them to the conference table. The fact that we did not act in a way which would have implied a cessation of recognition of the Federal Government has been one of the important factors dealing with the very dangers my hon. and learned Friend has in mind.

FLATS, CANNING TOWN (COLLAPSE)

Mr. Arthur Lewis: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement about the collapse of part of a block of flats at Custom House, Canning Town.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan): The House will have heard with deep regret of the tragic accident this morning at Custom House, Canning Town. Part of a 23-storey block of flats completed two months ago, owned by the Newham Borough Council, collapsed, and extensive damage was done to the whole of one corner of the block.
The full number of casualties is not yet known, but on my latest information I regret to say that three people lost their lives and 11 were injured. A small number of occupants are still unaccounted for. Eighty families have been evacuated from their homes.
My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State for Housing and Local Government has visited the scene, and I am going there myself this afternoon. I am keeping in touch with the various public services concerned with the rescue operations, to whom I should like to pay full tribute for their efforts. I am assured that everything possible is being done by them and by the Newham Council to care for the injured and to rehouse those who have been evacuated or made homeless.
On behalf of the Government, I have offered any help which they may require in dealing with the immediate situation. The cause of the disaster is not known.
In view of the gravity of the occurrence the circumstances will be the sub-

ject of an immediate and full inquiry, and I am now considering the form that this should take.
The House will wish to join me in expressing our deep sympathy with the bereaved and those who have lost their homes.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Lewis: In thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I first explain that this tragedy took place in the constituency of West Ham, South, which is the constituency of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. Normally, he would be putting these questions, but because of procedural difficulty he cannot do so.
I am sure that, first, he would like to be associated with the sympathy expressed by my right hon. Friend, in which I and the whole House join. My right hon. and learned Friend was at the scene first thing this morning, and I have been there as well. We have seen just how wonderful were the efforts of a number of the public services. My right hon. and learned Friend and I would like to pay tribute to the Port of London Authority, the ambulance services, the police, the Salvation Army, and, above all, the London Fire Brigade, who were really magnificent.
May I also—and this is mainly on behalf of my right hon. and learned Friend—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask a question.

Mr. Lewis: My right hon. and learned Friend and I would like to know whether the inquiry will be set up speedily, because there is a need to allay public disquiet in the area. Can my right hon. Friend expedite the setting up of the inquiry and its meeting?

Mr. Callaghan: I hope to have a meeting tonight to consider what form the inquiry should take, because I fully understand the need to ascertain the causes of this tragedy to avert anxiety elsewhere. I am very glad to hear my hon. Friend pay tribute to the public services. His information on this accords with mine.

Mr. Hogg: When the Home Secretary goes to the site this afternoon, will he convey, on behalf of right hon. and hon. Members on these benches as well as on


behalf of his right hon. and hon. Friends, the horror with which we have read of this appalling disaster to our fellow citizens and our deep sympathy with those involved?
Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the possibility of a judicial inquiry in public, such as that which was held into the Aberfan disaster, so that the public may be reassured about the very disquieting facts which are inherent in an occurrence of this kind?

Mr. Callaghan: I am obliged to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I shall certainly fulfil my duty to the whole House in conveying the sympathy of us all in this matter when I go to Newham.
I certainly shall not omit to consider any possible form of inquiry. The one the right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned is certainly in my mind, but I should like to have a little more time to consider this matter.

Dr. David Kerr: In considering the method of inquiry to be used, will my right hon. Friend consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works to see whether it might be desirable to extend it to take into account the whole question of industrial building, such as was used in this block of flats, in order to give the reassurance which others inhabiting this kind of building would seek?

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, Sir. I can promise my hon. Friend that all the appropriate Ministers will be consulted in determining the form of the inquiry, its nature, its terms of reference, and whether or not it should be held in public.

Mr. Lubbock: Will the Home Secretary also convey, on behalf of the Liberal Party, our deepest sympathy with the relatives of those who have lost their lives?
Will the terms of reference of the inquiry be wide enough to allow reference to be made to any other buildings which might be suffering similar structural defects and advice to be given to architects on this point?

Mr. Callaghan: I accept the hon. Gentleman's charge to me, but perhaps I can be given a little more time to consider the nature of the inquiry.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said that there is to be an inquiry. I hope that what the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) has said will not be allowed to go without comment, because he has just said that there was a structural defect. May not the matter be sub judice?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate the issue now.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Heath: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 20TH MAY—Progress on the remaining stages of the Town and Country Planning Bill.
TUESDAY, 21ST MAY—Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill.
Motion under Standing Order No. 43A relating to the Finance Bill.
Motion relating to the Import Duties (General) (No. 4) Order.
WEDNESDAY, 22ND MAY—Second Reading of the Gas and Electricity Bill.
Second Reading of the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation Measure.
Completion of the remaining stages of the Town and Country Planning Bill.
THURSDAY, 23RD MAY—Remaining stages of the Family Allowances and National Insurance (No. 2) Bill.
Debate on a Motion to take note of the Report from the Select Committee on Science and Technology on the United Kingdom Nuclear Reactor Programme.
FRIDAY, 24TH MAY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY, 27TH MAY—Progress on the remaining stages of the Transport Bill [1st Allotted Day].

Mr. Heath: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, by guillotining a very controversial Finance Bill which imposes over £900 million in additional taxation on the people, he is dismally failing in his responsibility to the minority parties in this House? He has already pushed the Bill upstairs into Committee, where only a limited number of hon. Members can discuss it. Now he is even curtailing the time available there.
Has there been any other example of a Finance Bill being guillotined since Ramsay Macdonald guillotined the Finance Bill in June, 1931? Why is it that this Chancellor of the Exchequer is failing to get his Finance Bill through in the normal way where his predecessors succeeded? Is it because his weakness is matched only by his arrogance?

Mr. Peart: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will answer such charges in the debate. This is certainly the first time that the Standing Order has been invoked since 1931, but I remind the Leader of the Opposition that my right hon. Friend had hoped to settle a timetable by voluntary agreement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why should he?"] Hon. Members must listen. My right hon. Friend hoped to reach an agreement with the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), who leads the Opposition in the Standing Committee, but there has been no desire on the part of the Opposition, and, indeed, a refusal, to discuss, let alone agree, a timetable.

Mr. Barnett: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the tactics of the Opposition upstairs can only bring Parliament into disrepute? Is he further aware that it has been shown that the Committee can work to the advantage of the taxpayer generally, but that the Opposition have shown themselves to prefer to put party politics first? I hope that he will continue with the proposal to introduce a Guillotine.

Mr. Peart: The Motion will be debated next week when hon. Members will have the opportunity to discuss the merits.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the right hon. Gentleman a ware that many hon. Members hoped that the new procedure for the Finance Bill would be a success? May I congratulate him on being among those

of many of his colleagues who are reactivating the memory of Ramsay Macdonald in more ways than one?
Are we to take it that this new departure from precedent on the most important Bill which the House has to consider during a Parliamentary Session shows that the Government now regret that they took the Bill upstairs? Do we take it that they would prefer now to consider it in Committee of the whole House?

Mr. Peart: I do not want to be involved at this stage in a debate with the right hon. Gentleman. I am announcing what the business will be for next week. I have said that this is the first time the Standing Order has been invoked since 1931. It was the House's decision that the Finance Bill should be taken upstairs and I am conforming to that. I have already pointed out that we have sought to achieve a voluntary agreement on a timetable, but that the right hon. Member for Enfield, West made no attempt to co-operate.

Mr. Shinwell: I want to turn to what is perhaps a more important question. Why is my right hon. Friend only providing one day for the Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill? Is he aware that a very large number of hon. Members will want to address the House on the subject? Is he aware of the controversial and explosive material in the Bill and of the objections which will be raised to some parts of it? Will he reconsider and give two days for the debate?

Mr. Peart: I am aware of my right hon. Friend's views, but at this stage I cannot alter the business.

Hon. Members: Why not? Why not?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House cannot hear whom I call.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that the decision to guillotine the Finance Bill for the first time for nearly 40 years utterly and finally discredits the decision to send the Committee stage upstairs?

Mr. Peart: I cannot accept that.

Mr. Mendelson: Does my right hon. Friend realise that there are many different but sincerely held views in the House and the country on the Prices


and Incomes Bill, which is a most important Measure, and that he will be degrading the House of Commons if he does not allow more time for the Second Reading debate?
What are the Government afraid of? Why do not they want a full debate? If my right hon. Friend does not provide sufficient time for all these points of view to be expressed, it puts Mr. Speaker in the impossible position of having to announce that, while 60 hon. Members wish to speak, he can call only 15 or 16. Will my right hon. Friend reconsider this decision?

Mr. Peart: I recognise my hon. Friend's views on this matter. I am prepared to explain to him the programme, but I cannot at this stage concede his request.

Mr. John Hall: Does not the right hon. Gentleman concede that, when he is being subjected to denunciation from both sides of the House, there may be something wrong? Does not he agree that it is untrue to claim that there has been filibustering on the Finance Bill? Is he aware that, apart from the leaders of both sides, yesterday the longest speech was made by a Labour back bencher? Does not he agree that to suggest that we should voluntarily have placed our heads under the Guillotine by arranging a timetable between the two sides is no excuse for his compulsorily putting our heads under it?

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman knows the procedure.

Mr. Swain: May I draw my right hon. friend's attention to Motion 278, standing in the names of 154 of my right hon. and hon. Friend's and my own, asking for time to debate this very important matter next week or at least before the Recess?

[That this House has no confidence in Mr. Cecil King as a member of the Board of a nationalised industry and calls upon the Minister of Power to terminate his office as a part-time member of the National Coal Board forthwith.]

Mr. Peart: I understand the sincere and strong views of my hon. Friends who have signed the Motion, but I cannot find

the time next week. I will convey those views to the Minister responsible.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Is the Leader of the House aware that he has now confirmed the words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), that this country is rapidly becoming a police State?

Mr. Peart: The extravagant language of the hon. Member will not be accepted.

Mr. Palmer: Dealing with next Thursday's business, may I say, as Chairman of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, that we are delighted that our Report is to be debated then, but a little disappointed that there should be any preliminary business at all? Could my right hon. Friend give us an assurance that the maximum time will be devoted to the debate on the Report?

Mr. Peart: I am prepared to consider a suspension of the rule, and to allow time to make up for the previous debate.

Mr. Turton: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that the Select Committee on Procedure recommended that, in the event of the Finance Bill being taken upstairs there should, at the minimum, be two days on Recommittal, as well as the normal period for Report?

Mr. Peart: That does not alter the fact that my right hon. Friend who has been leading for the Government in Committee feels that it is essential, because of a breakdown in the voluntary system, to introduce this Motion.

Mr. Orme: Returning to the issue of the Prices and Incomes Bill, is my right hon. Friend aware that we urge a two-day debate so that all views can be expressed, including the diverse views existing between my hon. Friends and myself? I respect their point of view and I know that they respect mine—[HON. MEMBERS: "Do they?"]—This is a great democratic issue and I wish to address myself to the Leader of the House.
Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that this is a serious matter, affecting millions of people, and that the views of the trade unions, and opposing views, ought to be heard in the fullest debate in this House? Is he aware that I believe it to be in the interests of Parliamentary democracy that this should be so? Would he reconsider his decision?

Mr. Peart: I have replied to my hon. Friend's question previously, and I affirm what I said then.

Mr. Ridsdale: As Government business is in such chaos, could we have an early debate on procedure, so that we can debate more important questions on the Floor of the House?

Mr. Peart: There is no question of chaos here. My answer, anyway, is, "Not next week".

Mr. Moonman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that long after the fun and games made by the Opposition over his business statement regarding the Finance Bill has been forgotten, there will still be great dismay on this side of the House over the fact that he has only given one day for the Prices and Incomes Bill? Would he reconsider this? This is a direct appeal to him.

Mr. Peart: I have said that I would consider the views of my hon. Friends who feel strongly about this. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Answer now."] I have made a statement and I will not be intimidated by someone speaking from his seat.

Mr. Carlisle: Can the Leader of the House say whether, during the course of next week, the Patronage Secretary is proposing to move the writs for the by-elections in Oldham, West, and Nelson and Colne? If not, is this due to a fear of the outcome on the part of the Government?

Mr. Peart: I could not give a specific answer on this.

Mr. Michael Foot: Returning to the question of the single day's debate on the Prices and Incomes Bill, will my right hon. Friend recognise that he is putting himself, and maybe the House and the Government, in a very difficult situation in this sense—that it would be possible to secure the extra day for which we are asking by altering the Motion about the Whitsun Recess? Is he aware that if he cannot give us satisfaction on this matter, he might not get that Motion?

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend has put a fair point. May I say that I will consider this question.

Mr. Peyton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this announcement of the

guillotine procedure for the Finance Bill is a reflection of the incapacity of Treasury Ministers either to manage their own side of the Committee or to conduct successfuly a disastrous experiment thrust down the throat of Parliament by his predecessor the Lord President of the Council?

Mr. Peart: As I have said, the House made its decision. I would have wished that we could have had a voluntary agreement on this upstairs.

Mr. Cant: Would my right hon. Friend make it quite clear to the country that hon. Members opposite have deliberately sabotaged—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—a very interesting experiment.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have a debate on the Guillotine Motion.

Mr. Cant: Is he aware that we spent eight hours, seven minutes, discussing when the Finance Bill Committee should sit and whether there should be two fans or three? Is he aware that we spent seven hours and eight minutes discussing—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must pursue this in detail on the Guillotine debate.

Mr. Cant: Is he aware that we spent seven hours eight minutes discussing—

Mr. John Hall: On a point of order. I am a little puzzled by what is happening. Are we now entering on a debate on this matter, because if so I would like to join in?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman should have heard Mr. Speaker's Ruling, Mr. Marten.

Mr. Marten: Mr. Marten rose—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must possess themselves in patience. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) was interrupted on a point of order and must finish his business question.

Mr. Goodhew: On a point of order. I hesitate to dispute what has been said, but I understand that I heard you call my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten).

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman knows that Mr. Speaker knows that he


had done that. But an hon. Gentleman on his feet was interrupted by a point of order, and has a right to complete his question.

Mr. Cant: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware of the utter disgust felt by hon. Members on this side at the behaviour of hon. Members opposite who sit on that Committee? Is he aware that this could have been a most interesting experiment?

Mr. Marten: Dealing with the Prices and Incomes Bill debate, if the Leader of the House concludes that we can have only one day on the Second Reading, is there a chance of having the Committee stage on the Floor of the House? Otherwise, can he give an assurance that the Guillotine will not be used in Committee?

Mr. Peart: I cannot go into that. I note what the hon. Member has said, but I am discussing next week's business.

Mr. Pavitt: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, after yesterday's debate of eight hours in the Finance Bill Committee it was obvious that there was no option but that there should be a Guillotine Motion? Is he aware that of all the many Committees upon which I have served—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I know the keenness on both sides on this matter, but this is business question time. We shall be debating the Guillotine Motion next week.

Mr. Pavitt: Will my right hon. Friend, in considering the times for this Motion, take into consideration the comments made by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), which were obviously meant to sabotage the whole intention of having the Finance Bill in Committee?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Can the Leader of the House tell us whether next Tuesday the Patronage Secretary will exercise his new-found right to speak from the Front Bench to explain to his colleagues on the back benches why they are not to be able to exercise their right to speak?

Mr. McNamara: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether, now that the Transport Bill has emerged triumphantly from

Committee, we can expect a statement next week of further progress and reforms in transport, namely, the complete nationalisation of the ports, with worker participation?

Mr. Peart: That is another matter, but it is not for me to answer.

Mr. Sharples: I was not quite clear whether I heard the right hon. Gentleman rightly when he replied to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten). Did he decline to give an assurance that there would be no Guillotine on the Prices and Incomes Bill?

Mr. Peart: How could I when I was discussing the business for next week?

Mr. James Johnson: Is the Minister aware that our short fisheries debate of half a day was even more shortened last night? Will he kindly think of giving us a full day for fisheries before the end of the Summer Recess?

Mr. Peart: The end of the Summer Recess is a long time away. I note what my hon. Friend has said.

Dame Irene Ward: The Leader of the House said that he would consider the representations made by his side that they might have more than one day for the Prices and Incomes Bill. When may the House expect an answer from him?

Mr. Peart: If I achieve or alter something I will inform hon. Members. I always do that.

Mr. Dickens: Mr. Dickens rose—

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House wants to hear business questions. Mr. Dickens.

Mr. Dickens: When the Leader of the Opposition is quite ready—

Mr. Roebuck: On a point of order. Those of us on this side of the House who are following these sensible exchanges with great attention are in a little difficulty because of a bit of a powwow which is going on on the Opposition Front Bench. I would ask for a little bit of hush.

Mr. Speaker: There has been what the hon. Gentleman chose to call a bit of a pow-wow going on from both sides of the House during the last 20 minutes.

Mr. Dickens: Now that I have the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition—

Mr. Rose: On a point of order. Is it not gross discourtesy and contempt of the House for the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip to confer in this way while the House is dealing with business questions?

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not a point of order. Mr. Dickens.

Mr. Roebuck: Mr. Roebuck rose—

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: The House may be enjoying itself, but there is plenty of business ahead on the Order Paper. Mr. Dickens.

Mr. Roebuck: On a point of order. Despite protests from this side of the House, and although their attention has been drawn to the fact, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip continue to cause a great deal of disturbance and prevent the House from proceeding in an orderly and dignified manner. May I ask you to take some action about this, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: I have already dealt with that point of order twice.

Mr. Lubbock: On a point of order. A minute or so ago I distinctly observed the Leader of the House talking to the ex-Leader of the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We might now profitably get back to business questions.

Mr. Heath: Mr. Speaker, can you not rule firmly and clearly that there is not, and never has been, anything out of order in the House in hon. Members quietly conferring with one another?

Mr. Speaker: I did so rule twice.

Mr. Dickens: In view of the hours spent on footling points of order in the Finance Committee, is my right hon. Friend aware that his decision to introduce a Guillotine is absolutely right and fully justified?

Mr. Peart: Yes.

Mr. Dickens: On the other hand, is he aware shat his decision to reconsider the timetabling—

Mr. Speaker: We can only have one Business question per hon. Member.

Sir J. Eden: Is it not quite clear that the decision to send the Bill upstairs in the first place was an effort to stifle proper discussion? Does the Leader of the House not realise that the Finance Bill, of all Bills, is in a very special position? Is it not an example of the Chancellor's total indifference to the normal courtesy to the House, and of his cowardice, that he did not make this point last night to the Committee?

Dr. David Kerr: On a point of order. It does not appear to me that that was a Business question, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am endeavouring to keep the House to questions of business.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that what he is doing with the Finance Bill and with the Prices and Incomes Bill he is now also attempting to do with a Select Committee's Report? After all the effort put in by hon. Members who have worked in the Select Committee on Science and Technology, on the nuclear reactor programme, which surely is an important issue, does he not agree that to squeeze a debate on the Report into the second half of the day is an outrage?

Mr. Peart: I am rather surprised at the hon. Gentleman saying that. I have given an assurance that any time lost by previous business will be made up; in other words, hon. Members will have adequate time. I have been anxious to have Select Committee Reports debated, as indeed the Select Committee's Report on Agriculture was debated the other day. If the hon. Member looks at my reply very carefully, he will see that there will be adequate time for debate.

Mr. Murray: In view of my right hon. Friend's failure to give time to Motion 278 next week, will he ask his right hon. Friend the Minister of Power to seek the early abdication of the "king"?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a business question.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Would the Leader of the House address himself to the main point of next week's business? In


some years there is an agreement on the Finance Bill, in some years there is no agreement, but every Chancellor of all three parties, with the exception of the year 1931, has always got the Finance Bill without a Guillotine. Will he address himself to that and realise that the failure this year is directly due to the petulance, insolence and arrogance of the Chancellor?

Mr. Peart: The answer is really no Sir. I am informed that the right hon. Gentleman was, unfortunately, uncooperative.

Mrs. Anne Kerr: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he will consider giving one extra day to the Prices and Incomes Bill debate? It is exceedingly important. The women of Britain are waiting to hear the prices aspect discussed adequately in the House.

Mr. Peart: I have already answered that question.

Mr. Blaker: Why is the Leader of the House not able to give an answer about the Oldham and the Nelson and Colne by-elections? Is he not aware that the Government's delay in this matter is taken as another indication of their lack of interest in the problems of the area?

Mr. Peart: Mr. Speaker, this has nothing to do with business.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would remind the House that we have so far spent 40 minutes on business questions. There is a lot of work ahead.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Did the Leader of the House announce that the business for next Tuesday was both the Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill and a Guillotine on the Finance Bill? If these are both being timed on the same day, does not this show that the Government's programme both downstairs and upstairs is grossly overloaded? Ought he not to consider dropping two or three of the Government's Bills, such as the Transport Bill and the Race Relations Bill, in order to get back on to an even keel?

Mr. Peart: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to go into

debating matters here. This has nothing to do with next week's business.

Sir Frank Pearson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you advise us whether questions on the Nelson and Colne by-election are in order during Business questions?

Mr. Speaker: I should have thought that it was in order to ask the Leader of the House about any of the business that is ahead, or possibly ahead, and that this would be a piece of business.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Will the Leader of the House please find the time for my very urgent Motion No. 37? It is very urgent, because it is designed to enable Scotland to use devaluation for the benefit of the nation.

[That this House, recognising that Scotland's present diverse, agricultural, industrial, fishing, tourist and employment developments, geographical and otherwise, do not accord with the advances of science and Scotland's potentialities as is shown by the over-centralisation of parts and depopulation of other parts of Scotland, is of opinion that a commission of Scottish experts should be appointed to investigate and report on the relevant problems and their solution in order to further develop Scotland as a producing and exporting country.]

Mr. Peart: I cannot find any time next week.

Sir Frank Pearson: Adverting to the Nelson and Colne by-election, does the Leader of the House recognise that there are very serious economic difficulties in the area and that it is a scandal that the electors are being deprived of Parliamentary representation on the Floor of this House?

Mr. Peart: I have said that I cannot deal with that point when we are considering next week's business.

Hon. Members: Why not?

Earl of Dalkeith: Can the Leader of the House say how much time will be available for discussion of the guillotine Motion next Tuesday, or is he intending to guillotine that as well?

Mr. Peart: Two hours.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Sir B. Janner: In view of the Report of the Law Commission on the question of people's negligence in allowing animals to stray, will my right hon. Friend now introduce a Bill on the lines that it proposes? If not, is he prepared to support the Private Member's Bill which I am promoting to deal with one section of it, namely, the destruction caused by animals which are allowed to stray on highways?

Mr. Peart: I am aware of my hon. Friend's concern, and I will have a word with him about it, but I cannot find time for a debate next week.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: As the representative of one of over 570 constituencies in the country which are effectively disfranchised so far as the Finance Bill is concerned, may I ask the Leader of the House whether, believing in no taxation without representation, he feels that it is in any way adequate that there should be no more than a two-hour discussion, which I agree the Standing Order permits, on the guillotine Motion, providing almost no chance for many of us to comment? Is he aware that this is the action not of an honourable Minister, but of a drawing-room storm trooper?

Mr. Peart: I do not think that remarks like that do any good. The hon. Gentleman knows the Standing Order, and he knows that the decision was taken by the House to take the Committee stage of the Bill upstairs.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he need not take the Allocation of Time Motion under the Standing Order, and that he can give a full day? Why does he not do so?

Mr. Peart: Is the right hon. Gentleman willing to talk about this with me?

Mr. Iain Macleod: If the Leader of the House asks me whether I am willing to talk about having a full day for the guillotine Motion, the answer is "Yes, we will have a full day". Will he now accept it?

Mr. Peart: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman is now prepared to talk about matters which he has refused consistently to do so far.

Mr. Heath: Will the Leader of the House now say clearly, yes or no, is there to be a full day's debate on the guillotine Motion?

Mr. Peart: No. I have announced the Business. However, in view of what the right hon. Member for Enfield, West has said, I will be prepared to talk to him about it.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to Motion No. 282, on Gibraltar, which has the support of right hon. and hon. Members on all sides of the House and which draws attention to the wide support for the British position among Parliamentarians in Europe? Would he allow time for a debate, but preferably not next Tuesday?

[That this House takes note with warm approval of the Motion tabled at the recent meeting of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe at Strasbourg by Parliamentarians of eleven countries and all political parties there represented, deploring all acts calculated to cause inconvenience and hardship to the people of Gibraltar who have overwhelmingly expressed their opposition to a transfer of sovereignty and calling on the Spanish Government to reopen the frontier.]

Mr. Peart: I know of my hon. and learned Friend's interest in this matter, but time cannot be found next week.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Would the Leader of the House care to say a word about what has become of the argument of his right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council for sending the Finance Bill upstairs, which was that there would be detailed and prolonged scrutiny between experts?

Mr. Peart: This is not a matter for me. The decision was taken, and I have given the reasons why action has been taken by the Government.

Mr. Birch: Does the Leader of the House realise that deep feelings of people when they are taxed an extra £900 million and right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are too idle even to consider their case?

Mr. Peart: I am aware that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite feel strongly


about this new arrangement. They have all said so. Their attitude has been consistent. I do not deny that.

Mr. Bessell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the revised version of the Transport Bill as amended by Standing Committee F will be published, I understand, on Saturday, that all Amendments have to be tabled by Tuesday morning and be on the Order Paper by then for the convenience of the Business Sub-Committee, and that, in those circumstances, it is impossible for back-bench hon. Members to get down all the Amendments that they wish to table? Can he make a different arrangement, either in relation to the meeting of the Business Sub-Committee or the publication of the Bill?

Mr. Peart: I will look into that.

Mr. Brooks: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us are perfectly content with the arrangement originally announced referring to the Finance Bill, but that if the Government are now prepared to consider providing extra time for business which they have not anticipated, many of us would prefer to spend an extra day discussing the Prices and Incomes Bill instead of wasting time considering the sterile arguments foisted upon us by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite?

Mr. Peart: I will take note of that point.

Sir F. Bennett: When the right hon. Gentleman confirmed that the Prices and Incomes Bill and the guillotine Motion would both be taken on Tuesday afternoon and evening, was he aware that one of his right hon. Friends was successful this morning in moving that the Race Relations Bill would also be guillotined on Tuesday afternoon and evening? Without using offensive epithets, is that not really a restriction of speech, when so many things are going on at the same time?

Mr. Peart: I cannot accept that there is any attempt to restrict speech.

Sir H. Harrison: Referring to Tuesday's business, when the right hon. Gentleman said that he was prepared to think again about the time for discussion of the guillotine Motion he

rather glorified in the fact that the last time that the Guillotine operated on the Finance Bill was under a Labour Government in 1931. Does he remember what happened to that Government two months later?

Mr. Peart: That is another matter, but I remember that the Conservative Party later supported Ramsay Macdonald.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall how long the debate on the guillotine Motion lasted on that previous occasion? Can he say whether we will have a full day this time? If he cannot do that, will he consult the Deputy Leader of the House and get his consent for a full day to discuss the Motion?

Mr. Peart: I have already answered that point. I would only be repeating myself if I did so again.

Mr. Alison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that neither the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, nor the Chief Secretary nor the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made any public complaint in the Committee considering the Finance Bill that the Bill is not making satisfactory progress? Is the Guillotine to be applied for lack of progress, or for lack of consultation about progress? If it is for the latter reason, is that an adequate ground?

Mr. Peart: There will be adequate time for hon. Members to debate the issue.

Hon. Members: Two hours?

Mr. Ramsden: If the right hon. Gentleman is determined to press on with this lamentable proposal to guillotine the Finance Bill, will he at least make certain, when drawing up the timetable, that adequate time is provided to discuss Selective Employment Tax and its application to hotels, which is of the greatest concern to my constituents?

Mr. Peart: That is another matter in relation to the Guillotine. I know that the right hon. Gentleman feels strongly about it, and I will note what he has said.

Sir T. Beamish: Can the Leader of the House tell us what is the position concerning the statement about the pay and


allowances of the Armed Forces, which is long overdue, six weeks overdue, I think?

Mr. Peart: I am aware of the hon. and gallant Member's interest in this. I did give the reply that the Prices and Incomes Board is still discussing the matter. As soon as the Report is out, the Government will have to make an announcement.

Mr. Heath: Is the Leader of the House aware that at a time when Parliamentary institutions and the House of Commons in particular, are under vicious attack outside from every quarter, the Government's handling of business, in which they are steamrollering through Bills affecting millions of people—the Transport Bill, of which 50 Clauses were not discussed, the Finance Bill, now to be guillotined, so that the same thing will happen, the Prices and Incomes Bill, imposing almost complete control on the country's economy—rightly or wrongly—only one day for Second Reading—that this handling of business by the Government is rapidly becoming intolerable? The Government have not one shred of support left in the country from the electorate, from trade unions or from industry. To pursue this policy, as they are doing now, is an abuse of power and is becoming a Parliamentary despotism against which the people will revolt.

Hon. Members: Out, out, out.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order. This noise does nobody any good.

Mr. Roebuck: On a point of order. As a comparative newcomer to the House, I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker, as one who wants to keep to the rules so that Parliamentary democracy can be seen to function. Can you tell me whether the extremely long question, if it was a question, which the Leader of the Opposition has just addressed to my right hon. Friend, is one that comes under the heading of business questions?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that the Chair does try to keep the House in order. It is one of the Chair's responsibilities to see that what takes place at business question time is in order.

Mr. Roebuck: If I may say so, with great respect, I have observed that whenever I have fallen foul by stepping over the mark I have been quickly rebuked.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must be careful. If he wants to suggest that he is treated unfairly by the Chair as compared with any other hon. Member, that would be a grave reflection on the Chair. He has a Parliamentary opportunity of stating such an opinion by Motion on the Order Paper.

ADJOURNMENT (WHITSUNTIDE)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House, at its rising on Friday, 31st May, do adjourn till Tuesday, 11th June.—[Mr. Peart.]

4.23 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I rise to suggest very briefly that the House should not go into the Whitsun Recess without a short time to debate the plight of a number of political detainees in Singapore held, as we believe, without trial, in deteriorating conditions, by the present Government of Singapore. I will refresh the memory of the House briefly on this matter. It was on 2nd February, 1963, at the time when Singapore and Malaysia came together, that about 130 Singapore residents were put into prison for varying political beliefs, part of which was opposition to the joining of Singapore to Malaysia. As far as is known, since that time those prisoners, some of whom might be termed prisoners of political conscience, have been held in gaol, without trial, by the Government of Singapore. I would name just three of them—

The Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must not go into detail about the matter which he wants to be debated if we come back earlier from the Whitsun holiday or if we do not have any Whitsun holiday at all.

Mr. Dalyell: I take this action because the matter is urgent since next month, before Parliament will have had time to debate the subject even briefly, my right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary will be attending a five-Power Conference in Kuala Lumpur, and it is on the grounds of his attendance and participation in that conference that I seek to persuade the House that there is a certain urgency in this matter. I would seek to persuade the House also that this raises issues of some considerable importance, partly because the present régime in Singapore is sustained by the presence of a very considerable number of British troops and, in a sense, this nation is supporting the régime. Therefore we have an interest in these matters. I seek to persuade the House also that

it is important that this matter be debated because very shortly the Commission under Sir Alan Dudley will be making certain recommendations and, if the House is to influence those recommendations, a debate will have to be held fairly soon.
Finally, I would draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House to the fact that Amnesty International sees this matter as one of urgent importance. It says:
There are more than 300 political prisoners in Singapore, the majority serving prison sentences for unlawful assembly or contempt of court. Although these are political prisoners, in the sense that they are imprisoned as a result of actions motivated by hostility to the government, none has been adopted as a prisoner of conscience, since they had all, in effect, courted arrest. It is possible that there may soon be prosecutions for inciting electors not to vote…and the possibility of adopting such cases will be examined carefully.
Prisoners of conscience in Singapore are usually detained under the—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman will remember that I said that he could not go into detail of the merits of the case which he wants us to debate if we do not break up.

Mr. Dalyell: I would sum up by saying that I think that these matters should be raised by my right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary when he goes to Kuala Lumpur. In private correspondence—correspondence which necessarily and honourably must remain private—I have had complete courtesy from the Commonwealth Secretary and from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, who was at the Commonwealth Office, and they have argued that they really cannot raise the matter because to quote my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Speaker: This is what the hon. Gentleman will propose debating if he succeeds in persuading the House to have no Whitsun holiday or to go away later or come back earlier.

Mr. Dalyell: I am seeking to persuade the House that a short time should be devoted to this urgent matter before my right hon. Friend goes to Kuala Lumpur.

4.28 p.m.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale: It is very important indeed that before we rise for the Whitsun Recess we should have a


debate on procedure because of the arrogant attitude this afternoon of the Government in refusing to allow proper time for debate on the Floor of the House of the Prices and Incomes Bill and of the guillotine Motion on the Finance Bill. It is extremely important that before we rise for the Whitsun Recess we should know why so much Government business is going upstairs. As the Leader of the Opposition said today from this Dispatch Box, for which he was severely criticised, Parliament is being brought into disrepute because it is no longer able to debate important issues on the Floor of the House. I claim that this is an urgent matter which we should consider before we rise for the Whitsun Recess.
The Finance Bill, the Race Relations Bill and the Divorce Reform Bill are being taken in Standing Committee. The Transport Bill was taken in a Standing Committee. Soon, we shall have the Prices and Incomes Bill taken in a Standing Committee.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: If it gets a Second Reading.

Mr. Ridsdale: If it has a Second Reading, as my hon. Friend says. All of us on this side are most disturbed that, as a result of the way in which the Government are pushing through their procedure, the views of back-benchers cannot be adequately voiced. It is essential, therefore, that we have a debate on procedure before we adjourn for the Recess. The Government are treating the House in a most arrogant manner, and we must have an opportunity to speak. On the Order Paper now there are no fewer than 273 Private Members' Motions, which we are not able to debate on the Floor of the House. They cover many important matters. One of them criticises the nationalisation of ports, another is directed to the question of an Atlantic free trade area, another is about council house rents, another is about the population problem, another is about student problems. All those are important Motions which we have not been able to debate on the Floor, and it is essential that we have a debate on procedure so that we may make our voice known.
What troubles us in the handling of business by the Leader of the House is that the right hon. Gentleman is bringing

on to the Floor small matters and leaving it to Mr. Robin Day on "Panorama" to discuss some of the most important and topical matters in national affairs. They are not discussed in the House of Commons. The procedure foisted on us by the Government is precluding proper discussion of urgent matters. I fear that the Government are stifling discussion and preventing back-benchers from expressing the views of their constituents because they are unwilling to realise how strongly the country feels. They are shovelling everything under the carpet in a Standing Committee and are getting away with far too much legislation. The country does not want so much legislation. It wants the topical and urgent questions of the day to be fully debated in the House of Commons.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Swain: I give three reasons why the House should not rise for the Whitsun Recess until we have either had a debate or received a report from Ministers. The first matter is the one which I raised a few minutes ago with the Leader of the House, the question of a debate on Motion No. 278. That Motion has been signed by 158 of my right hon. and hon. Friends and by me because we recognise the danger that, during the Whitsun Recess, Mr. Cecil King may again, because of his knowledge of the facts and figures concerning the National Coal Board's undertakings, come out with an outburst in the Daily Mirror and the Sun and do irreparable damage to the country's economy. The House should debate that Motion at length before we adjourn and arrive at a decision, or, alternatively, to remove the necessity for a debate, the Minister of Power should act in the matter, not in the interests of my hon. Friends and myself but in the interests of the country. There have been weeks and months of character assassination from that quarter, so I shall not go into the matter at length. Where there is no character, there is no need for assassination.
The next urgent matter arises from a debate which took place in the House on 5th December last year, 157 days ago. It concluded at 6.25 a.m. on 6th December. In that debate, the Committee stage of the Coal Industry Bill, a promise was made by the then Minister of Power that


the regulations dealing with payments to redundant miners would be brought forward expeditiously. I make one short quotation to show the urgency of the matter. The then Minister of Power, who is now Minister of Transport, used these significant words:
Even more important, it already involves in its social provisions payments to about 2,500 men. It would be a great tragedy if this Committee were unable—it applies to either side; I make no point of it—in an issue involving human considerations of this magnitude to see the Bill through to the end, even if it means tomorrow, mid-day."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th December, 1967; Vol. 755, c. 1205.]
Those words by the then Minister clearly show the urgency of a full and clear statement about the progress of the regulations. They will be retrospective back to 18th July last year. When the Minister spoke in that debate, there were 2,500 men involved, and now there are about 3,750. That fact alone illustrates the grave urgency, on human grounds, of bringing the regulations forward at the earliest possible moment. I cannot possibly support the proposed Adjournment of the House for the Whitsun Recess until we have an assurance from the Government that the regulations will be laid and approved by the House before the suggested date for the Recess.

Miss Margaret Herbison: Has my hon. Friend any idea what is holding up the regulations? Like him, I am constantly asked by redundant miners when the regulations are to be laid.

Mr. Swain: The only answer I can give my right hon. Friend is that we have had excuses given by successive Ministers of Power to the effect that discussions taking place between the National Union of Mineworkers and the Ministry of Power have held them up. I am a member of the national executive of that union, and to my knowledge our officials have attempted to expedite the discussions so as to get the benefits paid to members of the union who are suffering great hardship because of the delay.
Now, the third matter. When we discussed the National Coal Board's borrowing powers last year, we were told that the White Paper on fuel and power policy had been withdrawn because of the possible effect which devaluation and the Report of the Select Committee on

Science and Technology might have upon it. That is a long time ago. The mineworkers are labouring under a delusion awaiting patiently the Minister coming to the House to tell us about the effects of devaluation. I suggest that the House should not rise for the Whitsun Recess until we have had a comprehensive report from the Minister of Power about the effect, however marginal it may be, that devaluation has had on the White Paper.
I pray in aid that immediately after devaluation the Gas Council announced that its added bill, because of devaluation, would be £3 million. Admittedly £3 million is marginal, but it is a hell of a lot of money in anybody's reckoning. We had the Gas (Borrowing Powers) Bill presented to the House in which I notice, significantly, that the borrowing powers are double. Therefore, there must be some effect from devaluation on the whole complex of fuel and power.
I suggest that my right hon. Friend draws the three matters I have raised, matters of grave urgency to the economy of the country, to the notice of the Minister of Power, so that we may have an immediate answer on them. There has been plenty of time since devaluation, there has been plenty of time since the Bill was given its Third Reading at half-past six in the morning, and there has been plenty of time since Mr. Cecil King made his outrageous statement last week for some action to have been taken by the Minister.

4.42 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton: I think that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Swain) was very modest during the course of his speech.

Mr. Swain: I always am.

Mr. Peyton: I concede that, of course. He was, shall I say, unusually modest, even for him. He referred to the White Paper on Fuel Policy having been withdrawn because of devaluation, whereas it is common knowledge that the White Paper was withdrawn because the Government were frightened of him.

Mr. Swain: Thank you.

Mr. Peyton: He told them they should withdraw it. No one has known what the status of that White Paper has been


ever since. So far as it is in doubt, the hon. Member is entitled to our congratulations.
Welcome though the prospect would be to me, and, I am sure, to most on this side of the House, of avoiding a daily confrontation with the occupants of the Treasury Bench, I am opposed to the Motion. There are abundant reasons why we should oppose it. First, I recognise that any kind of recess is a welcome respite to a Government who are under pressure—and under pressure which, in my view, is inadequate to match the full grossness of their defects.
Turning to the Finance Bill, we were quite clearly told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Standing Committee, and even in more detail by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, that it was essential, to fit in with the fiscal programme, that the Government should get through the Committee stage by Whitsun It has ben made far from clear what the Government's programme now is. I do not believe that we should rise without considerable further details.
I understand that a guillotine Motion—I would be grateful if the Leader of the House would contradict me if I am wrong—will be trampled through the House on Tuesday next. Meanwhile, the Standing Committee will meet on Monday—making what progress I do not know. As matters stand, the Committee will sit again on Wednesday in the morning, the afternoon, the evening and part of the night. We should like to know when the guillotine timetable becomes effective. Is there much point in the Committee sitting under the shadow of a timetable which has not yet been prepared? These are matters to which the Leader of the House should address himself, with particular reference to what progress he expects to get out of this abominable Finance Bill before the Whitsun Recess. If his timetable in any way varies from what the Standing Committee on the Finance Bill has been given to understand by Treasury Ministers, perhaps we could have a full explanation.
The right hon. Gentleman's incredible statement today—as has been pointed out, following the unfortunate precedent of Ramsay Macdonald—gave no details. It was announced against a background

of complete silence by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has shown himself in Committee to be totally incompetent to lead or manage. I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends, who have the doubtful privilege of sitting on that Committee, will corroborate what I say.
Having said that, it is only fair that I should express a word of sympathy for the Chancellor who finds himself bearing the responsibility and the consequences for this fascinating little experiment of the previous Lord President of the Council who, discourteous and inconsiderate as always, forced this unfortunate experiment down Parliament's throat. It is reasonable, before Parliament rises, to ask the Government for some undertaking that in future, when they are going to alter the fundamental ground rules of our procedure, they should consult and achieve some agreement with the Opposition.
Whichever side is in power, it is wrong that the Government should constantly seek to encroach upon the rights and privileges of Parliament. Whatever Parliament's reputation in the country may be, it represents far more the rights and liberties of the individual than does that rotten Administration that sits opposite dictating on the Treasury Bench.
Another point on which we are entitled to ask for clear guidance from the Government, and one which a number of my hon. Friends sought to raise during Business questions today, is: what are the Government's intentions about the by-elections? The right hon. Gentleman gave a ruling which was not entirely in concert with the ruling which Mr. Speaker gave a few minutes afterwards. He attempted to run away from the question by saying that it did not arise on next week's business. Of course it did. But the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to wriggle—he needs to—and he got away with the suggestion that he did not, in the business statement, need to explain the Government's intentions about the by-elections and whether he intended to move a Motion next week providing for those by-elections to take place.
But now not even the right hon. Gentleman can say that it is not in order for him to answer. It is. I am certain that others of my hon. Friends more eloquent


than I will press the right hon. Gentleman on this seeking to know precisely why some citizens are to be deprived of representation almost indefinitely. I am sure that the inhabitants of Nelson and Colne and of Oldham will be curious to hear the answer. I hope that it will be specific and detailed and definite. Even if they are to be deprived of representation until the next General Election it would be nice for them to know before the House rises for the Whitsun Recess. There will then be some chance for people who live in those deprived parts of the world to make representations.
The two representatives of those constituencies were men who pre-eminently stood for Parliament. They were not great lovers of Front Bench wriggles. They did not altogether take kindly to Government manœuvres. They were fairly strict critics of authority, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind the views which would have been expressed by Sidney Silverman or Leslie Hale had they been here. I can imagine some fairly coruscating phrases from both of 8them which would have seared the right hon. Gentleman, and even some of the more insensitive of his colleagues, because fairness compels me to say, as I have said before, that the right hon. Gentleman shows a measure of courtesy and consideration which his predecessor failed to show. I leave the question of the by-elections, vital though they are, with the comment that if the right hon. Gentleman is unable to give dates for them his failure to do so will be a further signal and indication of the paralysis of indecision into which the Government have sunk.
I turn, now, to the question of the Prices and Incomes Bill, which is rightly arousing anxieties among hon. Gentlemen opposite. I find it intolerable that we should be contemplating a 10-day Recess for Whitsun when we are able to have only a short day's debate on that Bill. I am opposed to the policy contained in it, and I always have been, for two reasons. First, because it is fundamentally hostile to freedom. Secondly, because I do not believe that it will work. I accept that hon. Gentlemen opposite who feel even more strongly about this subject than I do will suspect me of making a purely party point. I am not.

I am protesting that the right hon. Gentleman as Leader of the House is falling short of the demands of his office in trying to ram this vitally important Measure through the House when, by his own confession, there is time available.
I think that before the right hon. Gentleman decides to press the Motion upon us he would do well to consider deeply a remarkable speech made in Committee upstairs on the Finance Bill by his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. Walden). The hon. Gentleman there questioned the activities of the right hon. Lady—one has to draw breath before one mentions her title—the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity. Her hon. Friend said, as is clear, that the activities and the speeches of the right hon. Lady were slap contrary to the policies declared by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as being implicit in his Budget tactics. The hon. Gentleman said—I wish that I had a copy of his speech with me—that the activities of the right hon. Lady in going around the countryside distributing promises about prices remaining steady, or coming down, when the Government had declared the contrary, would bring a great deal of trouble.
Mr. Speaker, I see the Leader of the House looking towards you. He obviously wishes to relieve himself of the embarrassment which those facts cause him, but what I am concerned about is why the Government will not face the anxieties expressed by their hon. Friends before we rise for Whitsun. If the Government feel that there is insufficient time for their business between now and Whitsun, by all means let us sit on. I am prepared to accept the almost indescribable sacrifice of daily confrontation during what might be a pleasant respite from the ordeal. In two of the Measures announced today the Government have declared that Parliament is short of time. Shortage of time is the sole reason for the guillotine Motion on the Finance Bill. It is the sole reason for allowing only one day to consider the Prices and Incomes Bill. Time could be made up in the 10 days after Whitsun when it is proposed that we should not be here. It ill becomes the right hon. Gentleman


to use such messy arguments when the time which he says he lacks is available.
In those circumstances, I think that the right hon. Gentleman will do wrong to press the Motion. He will do right to listen to the anxieties which have been expressed from both sides of the House. He will do well to make a gesture of respect to Parliament, even if it is at the cost of some mortification to himself. He should not, at the expense of Parliament seek to shore up the tottering prestige of the rotten Administration to which he has the doubtful privilege of belonging.

4.57 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: I cannot always see the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) as quite the non-partisan/bipartisan figure that he portrayed himself to be at the beginning of his speech. Occasionally he manages to surmount his natural characteristics in that sense and to stutter out his feelings on other subjects. I shall, therefore, not follow exactly the points that he made.
I wish to press the Government on the matters of procedure which have been raised today. I agree with the reasons put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) why we should reconsider the Motion. I hope that an answer will be given to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Swain). I think that this is the first debate of this character that we have had since my right hon. Friend's appointment as Leader of the House. He should take note of the fact that all previous Leaders of the House whom I have known have had to pay special regard to my hon. Friend. Indeed, there were considerable periods during the highly successful tour of duty of the previous Leader of the House when accommodation had to be reached with my hon. Friend, when all the attempts by the Opposititon to direct the affairs of the House failed. My hon. Friend is a much more effective Leader of the Opposition than the rest of the party opposite. I warn my right hon. Friend that he should take especial note of the suggestions made by my hon. Friend.
I wish to raise a different matter. I believe that some of the questions asked earlier today during business question time are of great importance, and I hope

that we will get clear answers to them from the Leader of the House before the debate is concluded. After all, the purpose of debate is to have the answers before the Division. I hope that my right hon. Friend will reply to the matters that I put to him.
I think that I speak for my hon. Friends when I say that we draw a sharp distinction between the claims which have been made from the benches opposite about the Finance Bill, and the claims that we are making about the Prices and Incomes Bill, and I should like to illustrate why I draw such a distinction. I do so because the question of how the House should discuss the Finance Bill has already been debated at great length in the House. They have been discussed in Select Committees and referred to the House and there have been lengthy debates about whether the House should try the experiment of sending the Finance Bill upstairs.
Most hon. Members opposite thought that the experiment should never be tried. We understand that view, but it was the considered decision of the Government and of the House itself that the experiment should be tried. It has generally, although not invariably, been the view of the House in the past that, in matters of procedure of this nature, when the House decides to try an experiment, time should be given to see whether it works—

Dame Irene Ward: Would the hon. Member add that the Select Committee on Procedure made no recommendation and was, therefore, thoroughly surprised, I think, when the ex-Leader of the House decided to put his own procedure into operation against the advice of the Committee appointed by the House?

Mr. Foot: I do not question that. I said that the matter had been considered at considerable length by Select Committees.
The present Government are not the first who have not necessarily accepted the advice of a Select Committee, but have acted on a matter which the Committee had considered. I was saying that the question whether the Finance Bill should be sent upstairs has been extensively considered so we should not delay this Motion about the recess on that ground. As I said, I am drawing a sharp


distinction between that argument and the one which I wish to present to my right hon. Friend that we should not carry this Motion unless he can give undertakings about the business next week.
The Finance Bill is a different matter. It can be attended to by different means, because it is a question which is taken up by the Opposition Front Bench. Front Benches have the capacity, under our procedure, to look after themselves. If they want to force debates, they can always do so. This may be what the leaders of the party opposite are considering at the moment. They have left the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) to "look after the office", but I dare say they are considering whether they should force a longer debate on the guillotine Motion, as they have the power to do.
Therefore, on the question of the Finance Bill, I do not believe that there is a case for not adopting this Motion. The Opposition Front Bench have their remedy for that if they wish to take it. I hope that they will not, incidentally, because they will merely force the House to reconsider a matter which we have already considered at great length. As between Front Benches, I do not make great moral judgments, believing as I do that all is fair in love, war and Parliamentary procedure between the two Front Benches.
But it is a different matter when we come to the protection of the rights of minorities on either side. Naturally, I am particularly concerned about the minority on this side—if, indeed, we are a minority. If we are a majority, it is more serious for the Government, but we have not determined that and we will not know until the debate is over. That is why we want proper time in which to consider the matter.
It is a very serious matter, in our view, if an attempt is to be made to have the debate on the Prices and Incomes Bill compressed into a single day. It will mean, as my hon. Friends said so forcibly, when putting questions earlier, that probably only one or two speakers on this side who may be critical of the Government's proposals in the Bill will be able to speak—and possibly only one.
The same may apply to the party opposite. We know that there are varied opinions about incomes policy there. It must surely be in the Government's interests that all that wide variety of opinion should be properly represented—

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: Not only are there wide differences among the back benchers opposite. Surely the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) might want to put his own difference of view.

Mr. Foot: Yes, we should have both the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) and the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling)—and the Leader of the Opposition could make a speech on one side on the first day and on the opposite side on the next, in which fashion he would be able to unite his party.
It is, therefore, in the Government's interests, in that sense, to have a longer debate. But I am pressing this matter for serious reasons. My right hon. Friend knows that extremely strong views are taken about the Prices and Incomes Bill in this party. Our discussions in other places have made that quite apparent, but my right hon. Friend must also know that few Measures introduced by the Government have been more widely discussed in the country than the prices and incomes legislation. Few matters have aroused such hostility and resentment among the supporters of this party in the trade union movement.
Almost every time that they have gone on record about penal legislation, they have opposed it. There is no case, to my knowledge, when at any rate strong representations have not been made at trade union conferences on this question. It has been shown in recent months that the opposition, so far from getting weaker, has been getting stronger. A conference of trade union executives was held on this very matter, for which I am asking for extra time, at which a vote was passed extremely critical of any suggestion of legislation, particularly the kind which we will discuss next week, in the inadequate time of a single day.
Therefore, in seeking to compress the debate into one day, not only will the Government deny hon. Members on this


side, who wish to present what they believe might turn out to be not such a minority opinion, the opportunity to express their view, but would say to the whole trade union movement that they could not find more than a single day to discuss the main principles of this Measure. If my right hon. Friend can say now that he is not just reconsidering the matter, but has had time to reconsider it and that he will give the extra day, he should do so, because nothing else will satisfy us.
It is not sufficient for him to say, "We will have an extra hour", or something like that. That would not be satisfactory; it would mean the addition of only one or two speakers to the debate. I can think of many occasions on which important matters which have been discussed with two whole days for the discussion. Certainly, the Government cannot argue that this is not a matter of paramount importance. Indeed, they say that the Measure is indispensable to their whole economic strategy. That is their case. Many of us disagree with them, but the place for them to argue their case must be, primarily, here in the House of Commons.
Therefore, what is to be the position of Government spokesmen? On a measure of this character, the debate being of such importance, I would have thought it perfectly proper that we should hear contributions from the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It has been considered necessary in some other places not far from here for contributions to be made by all those three speakers in the same debate.
Are we to be denied a contribution of any of the three on Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill? If so, of which one? Who will be knocked out? I am sure that it will not be my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity. I am sure that she will be here to introduce her own Bill. I am very sorry for her, but I am sure that she will be here, and also that the Prime Minister or the Chancellor will intervene—but the House should hear from all three.
The Government must, therefore, consider this extremely seriously. I hope that, at the end of this debate, my right hon. Friend will not be content merely

to say that he has promised to consider the matter and that he will do so. I hope that he will undertake that we will have the extra day for which we have asked. It would be in the interests of the proper business of the House, and in the Government's interest, to ensure that they can present their argument on this essential matter in the best possible way; and it is in the interests of the country in our relations with the trade union movement outside.
All of us in the House know that debates on whether we should adjourn contain an element of hypocrisy, because we all wish to depart for the recess, however passionately we may be forced to present arguments to the contrary view. We all know that this is so. We all wish to depart for what Jonathan Swift once called "the lucid interval". I am aching to reach the lucid interval, after the events of the last few weeks. I am sure that the Government are, too.
I say this with the utmost seriousness to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I think that all of us on this side wish him the greatest success as Leader of the House. We think that he will make an admirable Leader of the House, as successful a Leader of the House as he was Minister of Agriculture—and that is very high praise. We can apply the soft soap as well as hard words! On this occasion there is a balance of both in our arguments, as I hope that my right hon. Friend realises.
My right hon. Friend can tell the House that we are to have an extra day to debate the Prices and Incomes Bill. We will accept that with the utmost good grace. We will not suggest in any way that he has acceded to pressure. We will attribute his concession to his statesmanship as Leader of the House. If, on the other hand, owing to lack of experience or for some other reason, he were to think of deciding not to make the announcement now, who can say how long this debate will last?
I can see present many of those who have not been able to say all that they have wanted to say in Standing Committee on the Finance Bill. They may choose to take this opportunity of saying it, because apparently one of my right hon. Friend's proposals may deprive them of the opportunity of deploying the rest of


their case on the Finance Bill. I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend, whose arithmetic has always been very accurate, will look at these ventures and see that the course of wisdom is, as usual, the course of democracy and will tell us that he has always had it in his mind to give the extra day, that he thinks the arguments for it are overwhelming, and that he proposes accordingly.
If he does that, he will send us all away happier for our "lucid interval", because we do not want him to overlook the matters raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East. If he makes this announcement, my right hon. Friend will send us away with unanimous agreement, except for a few nondescripts on the other side of the House. We could all go away in a much happier spirit. That is my advice to my right hon. Friend. I am sure that he will take it.

5.12 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: After our experience earlier this afternoon, the Leader of the House will not be surprised if we are rather suspicious of this apparently innocuous Motion. The first question I wish to put is: why does it appear so soon before the recess? This is exceptional, in my experience. Normally, these Motions are discussed during the week that we rise for the recess. There may be a reasonable and innocent explanation, but we are now in such a state of suspicion of the Government's handling of Parliamentary business that we want to know exactly why they have taken the very unusual course of tabling this Motion unusually early.
Are the Government frightened of having it discussed later? Normally, it is taken at the latest convenient time, in case something blows up either at home or abroad. The Government wish to keep their powder dry and their options open. If the House approves the Motion now, the Government will have tied their hands far in advance of the normal procedure. Why? The right hon. Gentleman must not be surprised or hurt if we are suspicious after what happened earlier.
The second point stems directly from what the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) said. The hon. Gentleman drew a distinction between the two explosions of this afternoon.

The hon. Gentleman was not concerned about the Guillotine on the Finance Bill or about the question of the Finance Bill going to a Standing Committee. He said that that was a separate question from the question whether there should be one or two days for the Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill. I suggest that the two matters are much more related than that.
The whole raison d'etre, the whole argument for sending the Finance Bill to Standing Committee, was that wide-ranging debates of national importance should take place in the Chamber, that the Floor of the House should be freed from the boring minutiae of our tax system and that arguments on our tax system should go to Standing Committee where there could be prolonged and detailed scrutiny free from the political atmosphere of the Chamber.
Now we are to get neither. We are not getting the opportunity of detailed scrutiny in Standing Committee, nor are we getting wide-ranging debates of national importance in the Chamber. Since the Finance Bill went into Standing Committee, with practically no exceptions the only debates which have taken place on the Floor of the House on subjects of wide-ranging national importance have been those held on Supply days about topics chosen by the Opposition. The Government have put forward a diet of grit, a lot of detailed legislative proposals, Statutory Instruments—all the day-to-day business which they want to get through. The Government cannot be blamed for wanting to get it through. However, that is how the Government have used this exceptional opportunity, exceptional in the sense that that is what they sought to achieve when they sent the Finance Bill to Standing Committee.
They now have a chance of repenting. Now they can use the time that they have to spare as a result of sending the Finance Bill to a Standing Committee to have a wide-ranging debate of great national importance, namely, two days instead of one for the debate on the Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill.
Unless the Leader of the House yields to the demands made from all quarters—I am glad to see that the Patronage Secretary has come in to instruct the Leader of the House to give way to this universal demand—he will lose far more time on


this rather extraordinary Motion—or, rather, this ordinary Motion which has been brought forward at an extraordinary time than he would otherwise. The Government are in Parliamentary disarray. Their business has got into the most frightful mess due to their overloading the machine. The Leader of the House knows that, because he is a man of common sense. This is his chance to show repentance and show a little respect for the universal wish of the House.

5.17 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I require some assurance from the Government on two very important matters before I can support the Motion. These are inter-related and virtually important matters.
The first is the question of the time to be allocated to the debate on the Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), in his brilliant, witty and entertaining speech, clearly demonstrated why we should be given a second day for the debate. It is obvious that there are hon. Members on both sides who wish to speak in this important debate, just as they wish to speak in a debate, for example, on whether Britain should apply to join the European Economic Community. There are deep feelings about this matter, feelings which tend to cut right across the parties. It is clear that one day is totally inadequate to allow proper and thorough discussion, with all points of view adequately expressed.
The other matter, which is inter-related, is that we are talking in terms of going home for a few days away from the House of Commons while people in the City of Liverpool are walking the streets because of a bus strike, which has been going on for 10 weeks and which arose basically out of the policy on prices and incomes. It would be absolutely absurd if this House adjourned without some positive and concrete steps being taken by the Government to get that dispute concluded at the earliest possible moment.
My hon. Friends will be aware that when we came back from the Easter Recess I raised this matter by a Private Notice Question. I asked then what actions were to be taken by the Government to get immediate conciliation with a view to a solution of the

problem. That was several weeks ago. The strike goes on and people in Liverpool are still walking the streets. The old are confined to their homes and relatives cannot go to see people in hospital if they cannot afford taxi fares or find friends who have cars to take them. Many are having to walk to work, sometimes seven or eight miles a day.
It is ridiculous that we should be talking about adjourning for Whitsun without taking some positive action for a solution to this problem.

Mr. Tim Fortescue: Does the hon. Member agree that it is the almost unanimous view of the people of Liverpool that if the bus strike had been in London it would either have been solved weeks ago, or there would have been no question of this House going into recess until it was settled?

Mr. Heffer: I am grateful to the hon. Member for reinforcing the point I make. I entirely agree that the view of people in Liverpool is that if the dispute had been in London, if there had been a bus strike and possibly an Underground strike in London, there would have been no possibility of the House rising until a solution had been found. The fact that through the Port of Liverpool goes one quarter of the imports and exports of the country, does not seem to matter at all. It matters very much to my constituents and to the people of Liverpool as a whole.
I do not say that the Government are entirely responsible for this dispute. As a result of the prices and incomes policy the reference was made, at the request of the Ministry of Labour, to the Prices and Incomes Board of the 23s. which had been agreed by the local authority, the Transport and General Workers' Union and the General and Municipal Workers' Union. That happened on 1st March and on 11th March the busmen of Liverpool struck. They are still on strike. Almost immediately they transformed their demand into a £17 a week demand, very much to bring them into line with the dockers fall-back pay.
How is it possible to agree to adjourn on 31st May when we have this example of the operation of prices and incomes policy as it exists and not to give adequate time by provision of an extra day


to discuss the operations of the legislation. There is no justification whatever for this. I do not suggest that greater steps could not have been taken in Liverpool. I think there could have been; for example, the chairman of the transport committee refused to meet me to discuss the matter, despite the fact that I had acted as a mediator in the 1960 seamen's strike, and that I was one who helped to bring it to an end by mediation. I have had some experience in these problems, but it appears that one can seek to bring the dispute to an end only through limited action through the Government machinery. More could have been done.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. I understand how strongly the hon. Member feels, but he cannot debate that matter on this Motion.

Mr. Heffer: I am not debating the issue of the Liverpool strike on this Motion. I am strictly debating the Motion. I am merely giving examples of why I think it would be criminal for this House to adjourn on 31st May unless we have extra time to discuss the operation of prices and incomes policy and before getting assurances from my right hon. Friends that we can do something more positive to bring the strike to an end. I hope that I am keeping within the bounds of the debate. I am doing my best.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have give the hon. Member a great deal of latitude. He has gone into this matter in great detail, I must ask him not to do so any more.

Mr. Heffer: It is quite clear from what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale and by me that the prices and incomes policy is causing great concern and requires much greater debate than we have had and than is suggested in relation to next week's business. I cannot agree to give my support to the Government on this Motion—I am very serious about this—unless we have more time to debate this question.
The Croydon conference was a meeting of the executives. It took a decision that the T.U.C. would support a voluntary incomes policy, but since the Croydon conference there has been conference after conference of various trade union organ-

isations which have gone on record against the operation of a compulsory statutory incomes policy. This matter has to be aired fully on the Floor of the House. Various trade union-sponsored hon. Members ought to be given the opportunity to present the views of their unions. Many hon. Members opposite have ties with the C.B.I. They would like very much to put the C.B.I. point of view. We should not deny them the opportunity for it is very important that it should be put. It would be very revealing if it were expressed fully.
I appeal to my right hon. Friend to give two assurances. The first is that we will have at least two days for the Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill. I trust that he will convey what I have said to the Minister responsible for conciliation in relation to industrial disputes. The second, therefore, is that we will have some positive action to bring the Liverpool strike to a close. If my right hon. Friend will give those assurances he will have my support today.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Eric Lubbock: I assure the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) that I have no objection to him making his views clear at considerable length. He has every right to do that, even though it means that we will have less time to discuss the Hovercraft Bill later. I consider that Measure to be of considerable importance, although I recognise the importance which the hon. Gentleman attaches to the problems which he raised.
The debate so far has been enough to show that we are faced with a most unusual Motion. The Leader of the House will have realised that there is universal demand for more time to be made available for certain matters to be discussed and that, therefore, the demand to further shorten the Whitsun Recess is not just a matter of form. I agree with the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) that many things are often said in debates such as this in an effort to disguise debating points which one does not have time to raise. On this occasion, however, the overwhelming majority of hon. Members are in favour of curtailing the Whitsun Adjournment still further.

Mr. Ridley: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that we should lengthen


the Whitsun Recess to a great extent and thereby not have a Second Reading of the Prices and Incomes Bill?

Mr. Lubbock: That is an excellent idea, but we must be realistic. The Government are hardly likely to drop that Measure. In default of their accepting such a suggestion, I trust that the Government will heed the genuine demands that are being made.
I have been struck by the universal agreement that more time should be allowed for a number of matters to be debated. If we rise for the time proposed by the Leader of the House these matters cannot be discussed. The hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) pointed out the difficulties that are caused by this Motion having been laid more than a fortnight in advance of the Whitsun Recess. Many things may happen in the intervening period which might cause the House to alter its decision. Even if hon. Members were prepared to accept the right hon. Gentleman's proposal, one can think of all sorts of events that might occur in the next fortnight which the House would wish to debate as a matter of urgency. I will mention a few.
The Nigerian situation was raised at Question Time today and a number of hon. Members are disturbed about the Government's continuing supply of arms to the Federal régime, which, according to some reports coming out of Biafra, are being used to massacre the civil population there. We have not debated this subject, and if these disturbing reports have any vestige of truth, the House would not be fulfilling its responsibilities until a series of questions were asked and answered about the supply of arms to the Federal régime. I hope that the initiating of talks will lead to a peaceful settlement, but developments might take place in the next fortnight which the House would wish to discuss.
There has been a sense of growing industrial unrest in the country. We have had the one-day engineering strike, which paralysed industry, and this might be the signal for further stoppages of work as the Prices and Incomes Bill approaches and as many workers wish to express their repugnance of the Government's policy. If this happened on a wide scale

the House would want to take note of it at the earliest opportunity.
Then there are the Vietnam peace talks. The House should surely have an opportunity of discussing this matter as soon as any reports come out about the conversations between the Americans and North Vietnamese; or will the House entirely ignore what is probably the most important issue of our generation—whether a peaceful settlement can be secured in Vietnam, with a cessation of hostilities and the rebuilding of the shattered land of both North and South Vietnam?
Although we will recess for Whitsun we will not be having a nice long holiday. I am always annoyed when people say, "What a nice holiday you will have". Although the majority of hon. Members work hard during the recesses, they are not doing their principal job which is to be here to debate matters of national and international importance.
At business question time today my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) raised the important question of the time allowed for Amendments to be tabled to the Transport Bill. According to my hon. Friend—I am horrified to think that this may be true; I have every reason to believe that it is but if my hon. Friend is wrong I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will correct him—the Bill will be published over the weekend so that hon. Members will not get copies of it, because the Vote Office will be closed, until Monday. Yet hon. Members must submit their Amendments by Tuesday morning so that they can be submitted to the Business Committee on Wednesday.
If this is true—and the leader of the House did not deny it earlier—then it is a denial of the rights of hon. Members who were not on the Transport Bill Standing Committee but who may wish, having studied the amended Measure, to table Amendments on Report. The Bill is extremely complicated. I will not have time on Monday, when I must be concerned with the Town and Country Planning Bill on Report, to phrase the Amendments which I wish to table to the Transport Bill and get them to the Public Bill Office by later that afternoon. This would be an impossibility for me and other Members who have not been


on the Standing Committee, and I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will consider allowing more time for this process to be followed. The right hon. Gentleman told my hon. Friend that he would consider the matter and announce his decision later. I hope that he will announce a concession at the end of this debate because that would make a considerable difference to my attitude towards this Motion.
There is then the question of the Report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which is to be debated next Thursday after an intolerable delay—that is, remembering that the Committee published its Report last October and, at the request of the Government, had worked through the recess to complete it. So far there has been no reaction from the Government on this matter and we await the observations of the Minister of Technology and the Minister of Power about the recommendations in that Report.
Before deciding to rise for Whitsun we should know the attitude of those Ministers and, if they are not to be announced to the House until next week's debate—and perhaps they will not be announced until the reply speeches—hon. Members who took part in that Committee's deliberations and many others will not be able to do justice to their consideration of this important matter. We may wish to have a further debate on some of those implications when we have listened to the Minister's speech.
The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North East (Mr. Swain) raised another very interesting point, the question touched on in his Early Day Motion, which he says is so important that it should be debated by the House. I rather agree, because if one compares the Government's treatment of Sir Reginald Verdon-Smith and Mr. Brian Davidson, the directors of Bristol Siddeley Engines who were criticised in the Wilson Report, with their treatment of Mr. Cecil King, one finds a great and glaring inconsistency. Whereas Sir Reginald and Mr. Brian Davidson were dismissed from the public offices they held because the Government considered them to be irresponsible in their conduct of the Bristol Siddeley Engines business, here

we have a man who has done something I should say was infinitely more irresponsible—I choose my words very carefully—in using the columns of a national newspaper to make damaging statements about this country's financial affairs and the state of the pound. This is a matter which should be very seriously considered by the House and by the Government in deciding whether this man is fit to hold public office.

Mr. Swain: I shall be very interested to see the hon. Gentleman's signature tonight on my Motion.

Mr. Lubbock: I have one or two other things to do in the House besides putting signatures on Motions, but certainly I am not disagreeing with the views the hon. Gentleman has expresed, and I support his plea that this is a matter of such great public importance that it should be discussed by the House before it rises for the Whitsun Recess.
I should find the 10 days of the recess very useful in my constituency, and I can certainly do with that break from my activities in the House. But in view of all the matters that have been raised I consider that the Leader of the House should think again. I am not just saying this as a matter of form, as one so often does in these debates, but because I genuinely believe that it would be wrong for the House to go away for 10 days with such urgent matters still to be considered.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: I want to add one more voice to an extensive chorus. I hope that when my right hon. Friend has reconsidered the Prices and Incomes Bill he will decide to give two days for its Second Reading debate. If he does, he will satisfy many people who not only believe that the Bill is of major importance but are also interested in the proper working of the House and in adequate time being provided for the expression of majority and minority views.
My main purpose now is to call the attention of the new Leader of the House to the part which the House should play in the formulation, exposition and control of British policy in international affairs. Unless the problems of what we call foreign policy are solved in the


next 10 or 15 years in a way which gives us permanent peace, it is highly probable that all the other work done by hon. Members with such devotion here will be in vain, for our children and grandchildren will have no habitable world to live in.
I want the Leader of the House to consider the debates we have had on Vietnam. Vietnam is very parallel in many ways to the civil war in Spain from 1936 to 1939. It may be the first fighting stage of a world war. It looks better now, but a few months ago many very responsible people were regarding that as a danger. We had a debate on Vietnam on 8th February, 1966, another on 7th July 1966—an interval of five months, another on 27th April, 1967—an interval of nine months, and that was a debate on a Private Member's Motion by my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) on a Friday—and on 23rd October we had an Adjournment debate about the admission of Vietnam students which occupied a few columns of HANSARD. That information, which I was given by our Librarian, who serves us so well, shows the attention the House has given to Vietnam over the past 2½ years.
Before the war we used to debate Spain almost every month, sometimes more often, and the appalling work of the so-called Non-Intervention Committee. Of course, the Opposition have never raised Vietnam because their view has been that military victory for the United States is the right plan, and some of them still say that after most of the American people have taken a different view. I believe that the Government should have found time and should still find time very soon for a debate on this vitally important matter.
There is also the question of Nigeria, which we have never discussed at all. There is China. There have been serious events in Hong Kong and in Peking, concerning our Embassy there. I had a description this afternoon from an eye witness of how the Chinese Army, which is supposed to be ravening for the blood of foreign capitalists, helped to save the lives of our embassy personnel. The soldiers carried no arms, because the Chinese Army does not carry arms, but they intervened to save our people—[Interruption.]—Hon. Members laugh,

but that is exactly why we should have a debate.
I have here the three red books which are the bibles of Maoist thought. If they are studied and if one examines how they are used in China by the people, one will see that the picture of China as a dangerous Communist State thirsting for world conquest is utterly false. It is urgently important that we should have a debate on the relations between China and the West, because the future of our children and grandchildren may well depend on whether there is a conflict between the white and coloured peoples of the world.

Mr. Stephen Hastings: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it would be a gesture by the Chinese régime to allow the personnel of the British Embassy in Peking to be relieved at last?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must insist that we do not go into a foreign affairs debate. Hon. Members must refer to the Motion.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I want very much to debate with the hon. Member, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will give us a chance. I shall not push the matter further now. The hon. Gentleman's intervention shows how very important it is that the relations between China and the West should be debated in the House by representatives of the nation, who have much greater interests in Asia than the people of the United States.
There is also the question of the arms race. I cannot remember when we had a debate on disarmament; it is very long ago. But nobody who studies the facts can doubt that international disarmament under general control is the only sensible form of national defence for Britain today. I recommend all hon. Members to study the report prepared by a group of experts for U Thant on the effects of nuclear war which has just been published. The principal author was Sir Solly Zuckerman, of our own Ministry of Defence. If they study it they will quickly come to the conclusion that the House should be debating disarmament not once every five years but very often.
I cannot remember that we have ever had a debate on chemical weapons. I


have here a new book called "We All Fall Down", by Robin Clark. He says in the preface that the new gases compared with the gases of the First World War are like the H-bomb compared with the first atomic pile of Professor Fermi in the squash court at Chicago.
The new nerve gases are hideous menaces to the civilian population. We make vast quantities of nerve gases. We are spending great sums on research. All this is never debated in the House. We are making biological weapons. I venture to read one sentence on the subject by Mr. Clark, who says
If and when biologics are ever used in war they will achieve a notorious military first. They will be the first weapons on any scale to have been liberated on an enemy before their possible effects were known … They will constitute a human experiment of a magnitude far outstripping those that were perpetrated in the Nazi prison camps.
We have never discussed biological warfare. We are spending vast sums of money on research. We are preparing biological weapons. One of our research workers caught and died of bubonic plague a year or two ago.
I ask my right hon. Friend to see that, in the rest of this Session and in the next, we give proper attention to these vitally important matters. He now has more days at his disposal because the Finance Bill is being taken upstairs and with that extra time we should give proper attention to these vital affairs.

5.52 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: At a time when Parliament seems to be in a state of disrepute in the country, to which there can seldom have been a parallel, it is significant that in this debate on procedure and the Adjournment for a recess, there should be such a very wide measure of agreement across the Floor of the House. It is both significant and important.
It is admitted in all quarters that the Government have got themselves into a most inextricable shambles procedurally. In spite of the fact that the Finance Bill Committee is being taken upstairs, the Government still cannot find the time to do what the House wants and allow the House to discuss what it wants to discuss.
First, there is the extraordinary way in which the revolutionary Prices and

Incomes Bill is being given a most exiguous time for discussion when it is known to be perhaps the most controversial of the many wildly controversial things the Government have inflicted upon the country. Secondly, the Finance Bill is being taken upstairs through a cockeyed article which my former school companion, the Lord President of the Council and ex-Leader of the House—leader of only one side during his tenure of office and certainly not of the other—inflicted on the House. Thirdly, the Government are forcing through, on top of that most improper devolution of the Finance Bill, a guillotine with the additional outrage that the Motion is to get only a two-hour debate.
All this is an accumulation of insults which this institution of Parliament can never have had to put up with in its history. I pass over the impropriety with which the Transport Bill is being indecently rushed through in such a way as to make it virtually impossible for Opposition Amendments or for Amendments from anyone else to be placed in time for the Report stage. All this is no more than the grossly evident symptomatology of the complete collapse of the Government's authority and of their capacity to govern and do anything for the sake of the country.
We should not let this debate conclude without pressing the Government very hard to cease the disfranchisement they have forced upon various electors in Lancashire simply because they know that the next representatives of these constituencies will be Conservative. The Government are flinching from these by-elections, and have been doing so for an intolerable period. I hope that the electors of Lancashire and of the rest of the country will raise havoc about this abuse of Parliamentary practice. The Government are inflicting disfranchisement on a number of electors not just for one Bill or for several Bills. They are preventing them from being represented in the House of Commons at all for an unreasonably long period.
All this represents a prolonged and growing contempt of the House and the country, and for this Motion to be brought forward at a time when the programme of the Government is in such disarray is piling insult on injury. The House ought not to adjourn in this


situation. It should sit on until business has been disposed of or until the Government have fallen, whichever is the sooner.
It might be as well to say a word of solace to those hon. Members opposite, whom we do not see much of nowadays and who came in with such reformist zeal in 1964 and 1966, believing that they could put everything right, notably by stopping the Opposition from speaking, which would make it easy for the Government. They do not have much time left here and we should like them to sit in continuity until the demise of this Government, which will not be long now. This idiotic and irrelevant Motion has been perpetrated by the Government in weakness, indecision and cowardice in running away from the storm they have whipped up for themselves, and I hope that it will be rejected.

5.59 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: The exaggerated language and synthetic emotions displayed by the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett), for whom I have a genuine liking on many other occasions, do not help the serious aspect of this debate. However, his approach is time honoured and does not vary from Adjournment debate to Adjournment debate before our recesses. If he feels that it was necessary for him to make that sort of speech, that is up to him, however.
But I want to urge upon my right hon. Friend a serious case concerning one limited aspect. There is bound to be a variety of subjects introduced into a debate of this kind, but I have always felt that the general case of the large number of items which have not yet been debated and cannot be debated before a forthcoming recess always has an academic appearance, for if we were to act on that principle the House never will go into recess and would have to sit for 365 days a year, which would be nonsensical.
What really matters is whether there is some special reason for not adjourning before a certain matter has been put right, and I do not claim that it is only the points I put forward which come into that category. I remember in previous debates many hon. Members opposite

concentrating on the Gibraltar situation, and I thought that they had a case. Speaker after speaker on the benches opposite referred to the urgency of the Gibraltar situation.
It is this sort of concentration on a serious aspect of a debate that makes some impression on government. I sat for a number of years on the other side of the House, in opposition, and we used to do exactly the same, but we did not make much of an impact when we merely argued the general case that the Government was a bad Government and that therefore we ought not to adjourn.
What my right hon. Friend should take into account is the constitutional and legal aspect of the Prices and Incomes Bill. I have seen it asserted in learned books and in speeches made in this House, that when there is a possibility of enacting legislation which will bring the criminal law into operation against a category of persons pursuing an occupation—such as trade union officers—which for many years has been considered to be completely lawful, then that is a special kind of Bill and a special situation. It has been asserted that this Bill is decisively connected with the whole economic strategy of the Government. It is impossible for members of the Government to deploy their case, and impossible for back benchers on both sides to deploy their cases, without sketching in and discussing the economic background to this legislation.
It is for these reasons, quite rightly, that so many Ministers have intervened in various places where this matter has been seriously debated. It is not possible to have my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity arguing that case in isolation, because we know that the Treasury has had a great influence in deciding that there should be this Bill, including penal powers.
On an earlier occasion, 18 Members of this House who called a Division on the Letter of Intent to the International Monetary Fund were later challenged as to why we did so. I concentrated particularly on this constitutional point. I and my immediate associates were convinced at the time that if we accepted the Letter of Intent there would inevitably


flow from it legislation affecting the citizens of this country, which would be defended on the grounds that it was involved with prior commitments. We said that when such legislation came before the House, it would be of the gravest constitutional importance to test it against the general economic background outlined in the Letter of Intent.
This Bill needs special consideration. It is not the kind of Bill about which one might say, if some points of view were expressed briefly or hardly at all: "It is only another piece of legislation, after all." This involves the whole economic strategy of the Government. What will the situation be if there is only one day? First, we are bound to have four Front Bench speakers. The Government have already said, publicly and privately, that this is a Bill without which the Budget could not operate, without which their economic strategy could not succeed. On a subject of this kind I cannot imagine any Front Bench speaker being satisfied with 10 or 12 minutes. He will want to make a proper speech, which will stand up in future. This might be an historic debate. That will be two hours gone. It is possible that after Prime Minister's Questions, there may be one or two other things, a Ten minute Rule Bill, for example, and we might not start until 4 o'clock or after.
If we add two hours to 4 o'clock, that brings us to 6 o'clock, leaving us with no more than the opportunity of perhaps six or seven speeches from each side, at the most. There are well-known practices in the House—and I must express myself carefully on this—whereby the Chair always does its best to protect the point of view of the minority. However, it cannot neglect the supporters of Her Majesty's Government. It would be monstrous if the minority point of view were not expressed, but it would be equally monstrous if back benchers who wish to give full and enthusiastic support to the Government's case were denied the opportunity to do so.
There will be a considerable number of people wanting to support the Government's case, and some will have to be called. The same will obtain in respect of the opposition to the Bill. The great danger is that if one takes the very limited time available—and this is the

decisive point—then the points of view of a large number of people outside this House will hardly be expressed at all. That is the real case for urging upon my right hon. Friend and his colleagues a change of view.
Last year the Amalgamated Engineering Union—as it then was, before its amalgamation with the Foundryworkers—representing one million workers in all the industries of the country, carried by a majority of one at its National Committee Conference a motion opposing prices and incomes legislation which included penal Sections. When the Committee met this year, after amalgamation, it carried a motion against this kind of legislation by 46 to 6. That is the measure of the change that has taken place, and the growth in opposition among the people who will be most directly affected, to this legislation.
The Transport and General Workers' Union, which is my union, and many others have, during this same period of 12 months, gone on record as being opposed to such legislation. This is not the time to argue the rights and wrongs of it, but I hope that there will be time on Tuesday. The dangerous position in which the House is now placed is that there will not be time for these different points of view to be effectively expressed. My right hon. Friend knows that I have always had great respect for him over the many years that we have been in this House together. He knows that when I use strong language this afternoon I am convinced that he is the last man to intend to do anything to damage the standing of the House. If, by what is obviously a Cabinet decision, and not a personal decision, he is compelled to proceed with this decision to allow only one day, he will degrade the standing of the House.
The House of Commons has always been held to be the central forum of political debate. A large number of books have been written deploring the lowering of the standing of the House of Commons. A number of academics have written books in which they have said that the Executive has a very strong position in the British political system. That was first discovered by Montesquieu and has only been rediscovered. They exaggerate, but there is a danger that the House may cease to be the centre and forum of political


debate. The curtailment of time on a debate of this fundamental importance would be an indication to people outside that we ourselves, on the initiative of the Executive, have taken and approved steps to curtail debate.
My right hon. Friend knows the importance of the trade union movement to the success of the Government's economic policies. Every Government spokesman has pointed out that, if their policy is to succeed, there must be willing co-operation by industrial workers. That is a matter of common ground. It is in the Government's own best interests not to create the impression, or add involuntarily to the creation of the impression, that there are points of view opposed to this legislation which they do not wish to be fully expressed.
I have said earlier that this is probably a Cabinet decision and not an individual decision. Every hon. Member understands that it is not possible for a Minister, however senior, to overthrow suddenly such a decision. There must be no shadowboxing from me or from anybody else. I understand this difficulty, but, on the other hand, I beg my right hon. Friend to understand the difficulty of those of us who believe that a decisive principle is involved. I would therefore urge him, between now and making his reply, to have urgent consultations, either directly or indirectly, with his senior Cabinet colleagues in order to get him out of this difficulty.
This has happened in the past, and there are many of my hon. Friends who would aid him in the process of consultation, by seeing to it that the debate does not collapse before he has completed his consultation. There are honourable precedents for this. I understand that the Minister has to work with his colleagues within certain conventions, but opportunities could be provided. I urge my right hon. Friend to engage in these negotiations now, or within the next couple of hours, and come back with a positive reply.
It is essential that we should be given to understand that the case that has been made is regarded as a good and serious case. Even if my right hon. Friend cannot make a final announcement after this debate has been completed, I hope that after the consultation with his senior colleagues which I am urging on him, he

will be pointing in the direction of agreeing to a two-day debate.
I have quite deliberately put this in as helpful a manner as I can. I hope that he will respond. If he does not, I cannot see how I and some of my hon. Friends can vote for the Motion.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: I hope to be a little briefer than the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson). I will start by asking a specific question of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, if he will be good enough to take a note of it. I ask him whether, before we go into recess in terms of the Motion he has set before us, we shall be fortunate enough to hear the Government's plans and proposals for the Committee which is to be set up to re-examine the question of the third London airport. There is considerable anxiety about this, and I hope that he can say something about it.
I do not wholly share in the compliments which were expressed to the Leader of the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). My own view of the change of administration that we have seen is rather that of someone who might once have been fortunate enough to have Dr. Crippen as his family physician only to find him replaced by Dr. Snoddy. Such a change might encourage very ambiguous feelings.
It has been said that on this occasion speeches are by custom synthetic, hypocritical and unreal in the opinions which they advance. I want to make it clear that the opinion I am about to advance is one I hold most sincerely and most regretfully.
I am one of the many people in the House and of the great majority outside it who believe that by accident or by design the Government we have today are destroying the House of Commons. I am inclined to believe that they are doing so by design. I regret this very deeply. If I am right, we are in the middle of a political tragedy, but the evidence which piles up day by day to support this view is overwhelming.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must come to the Motion we are discussing.

Mr. Onslow: I am attempting, Mr. Speaker, to show why I oppose the Motion which is before us. The proposition that we should rise on a set day and reassemble on another set day is not a proposition which I can accept in the terms of the beliefs which I have outlined to you.
The evidence we have to support this belief—and I do not advance it lightly—is that we are being overwhelmed by legislation. More and more legislation is coming on to the Statute Book every day, and we are continually confronted with the open contempt of the Government Front Bench for the democratic process.
I will not rehearse the arguments which have been deployed from the other side of the House which could powerfully support my view. Hon. Member after hon. Member on that side has denounced the proposition in particular relation to the Prices and Incomes Bill as being fundamentally undemocratic. I agree that it is. It is by no means the only one.
Hon. Member after hon. Member on this side of the House has denounced the proposal to impose a Guillotine on the Finance Bill as being fundamentally undemocratic. So it is. This is not an accidental coincidence, but a deliberate policy.
I see not point in adhering to the dates which have been set before us for breaking and resuming our debate. What good does debate do? Even if the hon. Member for Penistone used stronger language than the strong language he described himself as having used this afternoon, what good would it do? What good do we do here simply by using strong language? How long will we serve a useful purpose by continuing to sit here, by resuming after the recess and sitting here again bashing our heads against a brick wall of dictatorship? What good will that do?

Mr. Speaker: That may be appropriate on some other debate. We are debating now whether or not we should adjourn for a Whitsun holiday.

Mr. Onslow: Mr. Speaker, of course, I would not dissent from your Ruling, but the Motion before us includes a proposition that we should reassemble on a certain day. I am leading in my argument towards a proposition that we

should not reassemble on a certain day, because I am against this Motion root and branch. I will not go over all the reasons I could advance, but I would ask hon. Members to ask themselves what purpose they think they serve. For how long do they think that they will be thanked for sitting here and letting Parliament disintegrate about them?
What we should be discussing today is a Motion to dissolve, a Motion not to meet again. If we were to accept such a Motion, at least we might have a chance of redeeming the reputation of this Parliament.
In the history of Parliament there have been long Parliaments and short Parliaments; there have been mad Parliaments and bad Parliaments. It may be that some of those epithets could be dusted off and applied to this one. If we were to dissolve now, we would at least avoid the ultimate indignity of being known as the "rubber stamp" Parliament.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. Edwin Brooks: Several of the speeches during this normally short debate have reminded me of the view that the House of Commons is becoming like the hypochondriac who refuses or is unable to get off the psychoanalyst's couch. The more that we talk incessantly about the weaknesses and futilities of Parliament, the more we are in danger of believing that that is the case.
It is perfectly obvious that a good deal of the ritualistic deployment of argument today is no more than is customary on these occasions. Unfortunately, there is beginning to creep into some of the arguments a semi-hysterical wish on the part of right hon. and hon. Members opposite to frighten and panic the Government into retreating from measures which are necessary.
If the wish were father to the thought, like most hon. Members, I should like to spend a month cruising somewhere trying to find a country with a little peace and sunshine. Unfortunately, there are all too few countries which fall into that category, and that is the preface to what I suggest to my right hon. Friend about Monday, 10th June, when, in my view, we could quite profitably reassemble in order to spend the day discussing foreign affairs.
While I am not one to believe that endless chattering in this Chamber is productive of a peaceful world, there comes a time when international events reach a point where it becomes important that this House should express its judgment and not be so obsessed with its own sense of introverted values and its growing sense of insularity that it refuses to consider the burden of world affairs.
There are three instances which I will summarise more or less in headings that persuade me that there is a case for a foreign affairs debate, that it might profitably be held immediately on our resumption, and should, if necessary, determine our resumption a day earlier than the Motion proposes.
The first is the growing agony of Nigeria. Here we have what was clearly once the jewel of the British Crown in Africa descending into an abyss of suffering and anarchy. In such a situation, it is important that we should have an opportunity to debate at some length the implications of the disintegration of the greatest and potentially richest country in Africa.
The second point is that, for some years now, we have seen a growing crisis of Communism in Eastern Europe which seems to be coming to a head this summer. This is not the time to speak incautiously about the implications of what is happening in countries like Rumania and Czechoslovakia, but it is not without interest that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the Munich Agreement, which few of us remember with much pleasure or pride. At long last, Czechoslovakia is reasserting her right to live as a free and independent nation—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not debate now the matter that he wants to debate if he succeeds in getting us back a day early after Whitsuntide.

Mr. Brooks: I am aware of that, Mr. Speaker, and I was about to turn to my third point.
In the next few weeks, we shall be going through the most critical post-war negotiations to decide whether or not peace in Vietnam is possible. It seems to me that it would be appropriate to have a foreign affairs debate on that

Monday when we have had an opportunity to think on these matters and are in a better position to consider what should be the British Government's attitude towards the negotiations.
I have never seen this as a matter of black and white, but it seems to me that the time is coming when it may be necessary for the Government to say firmly on what basis they believe that a negotiated settlement should be arrived at in South Vietnam and whether they consider that there should be some sort of political coalition in that country.
Finally, I would refer briefly to a point which has exercised the minds of many of my hon. Friends and what has dominated the debate. It is whether or not the Government should give extra time to debate the Prices and Incomes Bill at greater length, and, if it is considered desirable, whether it is necessary to curtail the length of the Whitsun Recess.
Surely this is a proper matter for argument and for judgment. My hon. Friend the Member for Peniston (Mr. Mendelson) referred to the important point that the Bill involves a development of the criminal law of the country which may result in new crimes being defined. He argued on that ground that we should not be away for such a period of time if it precluded us from discussing the serious prospects of such an extension of the law.
While I appreciate that there may be a case for second day, equally it could follow that, even if my right hon. Friend had announced a two-day debate, we could still have assailed him vigorously for not giving us a three-day or four-day debate. There is no law about these matters.
Recently, when the Race Relations Bill was being discussed in the House, which also involved a very substantial extension of the criminal law, I do not recall that, when business questions were taken on the appropriate Thursday, any hon. Member got up to ask for a second day's debate on that matter. Those who allege that my right hon. Friend and the Cabinet degrade the processes of Parliament might at least have the courtesy to be consistent and express themselves in more moderate language which is closer to reality.
I am not opposed to a second day's debate on the Prices and Incomes Bill, but the critics of it have not been slow


to bring their views into public prominence, and it seems to me that, during the course of our debates, those who wish to express minority viewpoints on great public issues are not denied the opportunity to do so. During the Committee stage of the Bill, I am sure that there will be more than adequate opportunity to discuss these important and controversial matters at length.
At a time when the Government are under attack from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, I urge my hon. Friends not to bring comfort to our opponents. It is urgent that the country's economy should be put on a sound basis. I hope that the processes of Parliament will not be abused and that no comfort will be given to our political enemies.

6.29 p.m.

Mr. David Crouch: The hon. Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) has reminded the Leader of the House as strongly as anyone of his concern about the time that this House takes to consider the most important and vital Measures facing it.
We have heard the Leader of the House advising us today about forthcoming Measures. It is clear that two very important pieces of legislation will be considered in the near future. He has announced that the Prices and Incomes Bill will be given one day's debate. Much heat and argument have been generated on both sides of the House at this inadequate time for the consideration of something so important, and I am sure that the Leader of the House is not going to let these arguments pass over his head but will take them in and consider them with his colleagues in Cabinet and on the Front Bench. The force of the arguments from the Government benches behind him that this matter must be given consideration in this Chamber is something which he must bear in mind. He must consider whether it is not his duty, in his early weeks of office, to direct his efforts as Leader of the whole House towards real reform and real consideration of the real problems facing this House and this country.
This afternoon we have also heard the decision announced by the new Leader that the Finance Bill is to be curtailed in Committee and that the guillotine is

to be applied. This is another matter which causes me this afternoon to ask the Leader of the House whether this, too, is not a point which should be considered by him, and to recommend for further thought the question whether it is wise at this stage of the development of this great House of Commons that, for the first time, the Finance Bill should be considered out of the Chamber of this House in Committee upstairs; that, because it is taking time to get through the thorough consideration of and debate on taxation involving nearly £1,000 million, the Government should suggest—indeed, insist—that this House apply the guillotine in that Committee. I suggest that this is far too serious a matter to pass over lightly.
I am one of those persons on this side of the House who have not opposed the efforts of the predecessor of the present Leader of the House to take some steps towards the reform of this House. I am one of those who stand in the rather lonely position of not being against the idea of trying the experiment of taking the debate on the Finance Bill upstairs. But I am concerned at the fact that once it is placed there we may see it hustled and hurried through, and ill considered.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman cannot discuss on this Motion the guillotine Motion which we are going to discuss next week.

Mr. Crouch: I hasten to follow your guidance, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps you will forgive me if I get carried away in my reforming zeal.
I think it was the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) who spoke of the need for this Chamber to be retained as the central forum of our debate. It is really this matter, this thought and this ideal which prompted me to intervene in this debate to ask the Leader of the House to tell us, as regards the two items I have mentioned—the position regarding the Prices and Incomes Bill and the Guillotine on the Finance Bill—what is happening in this Chamber and what is happening in these efforts towards the reform of this House because of these decisions which are being rushed on us before the Whitsun Recess.
I believe that before we go into recess we must have a debate on the activities


of Members in this House as a whole. When I was speaking in this Chamber yesterday, there were seven other debates taking place in this House. It cannot be that this Chamber should not be the central formum, and yet I am not against the opportunities before us, which we must take, for the reform of our procedures, our productivity, our achievement and our efficiency. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) who earlier this afternoon implored the Leader of the House to give us time for a debate on the whole question of the way the reform is proceeding.
I make this plea to the Leader of the House this afternoon, with great respect for him as a Minister in the time during which I have seen him in this House. He sits now in a new position, not really on one side of the House but as Leader of the whole House, of Front Benches and back benches, and, above all, as the guardian of the back benchers' rights, the rights of the representatives in this House to express themselves. This is a matter of vital concern to us all and one which I want considered before we rush into the summer session with so much legislation and so much work to deal with. I want to see the Leader of the House show us, before he gets too busy and too immersed in the conduct of the affairs of this House, where he stands in this march, because march it is, to the real change and progress towards which this House is moving.
He will have my support in a move, even if it is an experiment, towards improving the effectiveness and efficiency of us who are the representatives of this country; but we must know, and we must know soon, where he stands and what his ideas of reform, change and modification are. I hope the Leader of the House will forgive me, but I believe that he gave us somewhat scant courtesy this afternoon when he answered business questions. This is not his custom, and I am sure he will take what I am saying in the spirit in which it is meant, but he was hurrying us somewhat in our business questions and this is, in a way, making a less serious occasion of the Thursday afternoon—

Mr. Speaker: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is drifting again into the ques-

tion of merit. He must argue whether we should have a Whitsun holiday or not: whether it should be a shorter or a longer one, or no holiday at all.

Mr. Crouch: I will endeavour to follow you completely, Mr. Speaker, and in particular I will make use of the idea of a shorter recess which you have suggested.
I am hoping that the Leader of the House, who has been noting things down as I have been speaking, will give us an opportunity to debate the new trend that he is to establish in the Government's move towards the reform of this House. I hope, too, that he will try to put a stop to the apparent trend of failure by this Government on so many occasions in this Chamber to respect the democratic procedures and to provide the opportunities which should be open to all Members of this House to debate in this Chamber the great events with which we are faced.
1 have picked out two items this afternoon the decision which we have heard regarding the Prices and Incomes Bill being given one day's debate only, and the decision to apply the Guillotine to the Finance Bill. I hope that the Leader of the House will give us some indication and some hope that we shall have an opportunity not of debating these things individually perhaps, but of debating generally the reform procedures which we are to follow under his guidance as our new Leader.

6.39 p.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley: I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) have drawn the attention of the House to the fact that it should not depart for a recess lasting 10 days without giving some attention to the desirability of debating affairs in the wider world and affairs which, although they may not have a direct impact on the pockets and purses of our constituents, may nevertheless in the longer term and on the wider perspective have great consequences for the wellbeing of the people of this country. It is not right that the House should rise without giving more attention to foreign affairs and to problems in certain parts, of the world which have the greatest import for Britain's ultimate security.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bebington spoke of the state of affairs in


West Africa, in the Far East and in Eastern Europe. I do not take up the points he raised, save to say that I concur in his argument that the House would do well to return a little earlier from the recess and devote at least one day, 10th June, to a discussion of some of those matters.
There is another part of the world in which, in my view, affairs are equally perilous and in which certain human problems persist which are almost as grave as those referred to by my hon. Friend. I speak of the Middle East. It is possible to argue that this country has no direct or immediate responsibility for the horror and tragedy in West Africa, that it cannot directly influence the barbarities now being acted out in the Far East, and that it might be wise not to seek to interfere overtly in the affairs of Eastern Europe. But in the Middle East there is a tragedy which has arisen out of actions of this country and decisions of the House 20 years ago for which we have an enduring responsibility.
Before rising for the recess, the House of Commons should give its attention to the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of men and women in a state of destitution in Palestine and on the borders of Palestine, a state of destitution brought about by the tragic conflicts of the past 20 years. The House should consider specific aspects of that situation. It should consider whether it is right that a member State of the United Nations should for 12 months have been in military occupation of the territory of three other member States, in flagrant breach of every principle laid down in the Charter.
Before rising for the recess, the House should consider whether we can allow a situation to continue in which unanimous decisions of the Security Council, to which this Government and country are party, are flagrantly ignored or flouted—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is drifting into the details and merits of the matter which he wishes the House to debate on one of the days proposed for the recess.

Mr. Hooley: I return at once, Mr. Speaker, to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington. The problems to which he alluded, and the

related problems in the Middle East, should be debated by the House, and opportunity should be given by arranging to return from the recess one day earlier than the date proposed in the Motion. The House would be unwise to depart for the recess without giving earnest consideration to how far it can allow or leave without discussion a situation in which the international organisation set up to preserve the security of the world is ignored or defied by one member State. Clearly, I should be out of order if I were to pursue that argument in detail.
I am not persuaded that the House should rise without asking for debate and explanation of any proposal which Her Majesty's Government may have in mind to supply arms to that part of the world or to one of the countries concerned. We should require the Government to explain their policy and intentions in the matter. If such explanation cannot be given before the House rises for the recess, we should require the proposed recess to be curtailed or modified so that, at an early opportunity, a statement of policy may be given.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Director of the World Food and Agriculture Organisation have made a direct appeal to this country for food to sustain the victims of the Middle East conflict. The House ought not to take its holiday without hearing what the Government intend to do in response to that appeal.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Peart.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could I, through you, inquire whether there is now a possibility that those of us who have sat here waiting to put points to the House regarding the Motion for the recess may at some future stage, after the right hon. Gentleman has sat down, be prevented from so doing? Have you in your possession, Sir, any information which might lead you to suspect that that might happen?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has probably heard that question asked many times before and answered in exactly the same way. I have called the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House. If any other hon. Member catches


my eye, he will be called, unless events move in, a different way.

6.46 p.m.

The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): I hope that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) did not really think that I was discourteous today at business question time. I did not intend it, and, if I was, I apologise. I readily accept the point which the hon. Gentleman made. There is force in his argument about the need to examine how reforms affecting our proceedure and institutions are going, and I agree that that could be an excellent topic for debate at some time on the Floor of the House.
I took careful note of the important points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) about international affairs, world poverty, the F.A.O. and the wars still going on in certain parts of the world. On all those matters I shall convey the views which I know he holds strongly and sincerely to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Inevitably, these matters have been raised, and several hon. Members, notably my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker), have stressed the need to have a debate on foreign affairs, with particular reference to Vietnam. I shall convey all the views expressed to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Ridley: Will the right hon. Gentleman clear up one small point? I take it that he is not attempting to wind up the debate in any sense, as there are still many hon. Members who wish to speak. We are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for intervening, but will he confirm that it will still be his wish to hear what other hon. Members have to say?

Mr. Peart: Mr. Speaker has already given his indication on that matter. I am replying to the points which have already been made, and I am sure that most of the matters which have been raised—

Mr. Dudley Smith: Mr. Dudley Smith (Warwick and Leamington) rose—

Mr. Peart: I am sorry; I cannot give way.
I have in mind what you said, Mr. Speaker, about it being out of order to discuss the proposed guillotine Motion.

Although many observations coming from hon. Members were directed to it, it would be improper if I entered into a discussion of matters to be debated when the Motion comes before the House.
I have looked carefully into the matter which my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) raised in regard to the arrest and detention of citizens in Singapore. However, I can only stand pat by the note which I had from my right hon. Friend. This is a matter to be decided by the Government concerned, and it is not the policy of the British Government to intervene in the internal affairs of independent Commonwealth countries. However, I will convey my hon. Friend's views to my right hon. Friend.
I have had considerable pressure from both sides on matters affecting the Prices and Incomes Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) made an eloquent, sincere and forceful speech. He was backed up by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). They made a very powerful plea to me to consider extending the Second Reading debate by one day. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) made a strong argument against it. He indicated that there were many other Bills of great importance to our citizens which had only had a one day debate. The Race Relations Bill was one.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Mr. Sydney Bidwell (Southall) rose—

Mr. Peart: I will give way when I have finished by point. He made a strong point that many important matters affecting the country and which also bring in criminal proceedings have had only a one day debate.

Mr. Ridley: Mr. Ridley rose—

Mr. Peart: Many hon. Members opposite acquiesced in this. I am not arguing the merits. I am trying to show that hon. Members have put two important points of view. One has to consider the matter. I said, in reply to a Question today—

Mr. Bidwell: Mr. Bidwell rose—

Mr. Peart: When I have finished this point I will let my hon. Friend make his point.
I said that I would carefully consider and convey the views of hon. Members to my colleagues. I cannot go beyond that. I have given that assurance. I have listened very carefully to all the speeches. Except for a short exit from the Chamber of about two or three minutes, I have followed the debate carefully and taken careful notes of every hon. Member's speech.

Mr. Ridley: Not every hon. Member.

Mr. Peart: Every hon. Member who has spoken. If points are missed in my reply, perhaps because I would be out of order in following them up, I will communicate with hon. Members personally.

Mr. Bidwell: The reason for my anxiety is that I, too, have been trying to enter the debate. It is no reflection on Mr. Speaker. I am proposing now to forgo that opportunity—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"]—But may I question the reference to other matters of considerable importance that have involved the extension of the criminal law. This is not so concerning the Race Relations Bill. It is important that that should be stated.

Mr. Peart: If my hon. Friend looks carefully through many of the major Measures that we have had in the past—I have been a Member of this House for 23 years now; others have been here longer—he will find that many outstanding Measures have had only a one day Second Reading debate.
One argument which has been put forward is that we should give time to hear the different viewpoints expressed by individuals and sections of the community. It would be interesting to have the differences of view between the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South West (Mr. Powell) and the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling). I know that within my own party there are differences, too. However, I know of no hon. Member who has found difficulty in communicating to the public the views which he sincerely holds. I cannot go beyond the assurance that I have given. Indeed, I must not get involved

in an argument about the merits of the Bill or the policy behind it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North East (Mr. Swain) strongly pressed me on a Motion which affected the position of Mr. Cecil King and the National Coal Board. As I said in reply to a Question that he put to me today on Business, I will certainly convey the strong views of hon. Members to the Minister of Power. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East was strongly supported by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) who, I assume, represents the Liberal Party. He asked me about the Regulations and a matter affecting redundant miners. My hon. Friend has made representations on this matter on many occasions. I understand his impatience. He made representations to me almost on my first appearance at the Dispatch Box as Leader of the House. I have pursued this matter and I have been informed that a statement will be made. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones), the Minister, in a Written Answer on 8th May, stated that he hoped to make a statement before the Whitsun Recess.

Mr. Swain: Which year?

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend, with his characteristic sense of humour, asks which year. This year. I have chased this up, and the Minister confirms it is still his intention to make a statement before the recess. The Minister mentioned that the National Union of Mineworkers had made a series of detailed suggestions about the regulations which require further consideration, and there has been a little delay because of this. I have looked into this matter carefully, and can assure my hon. Friend that it has not been neglected.
He also asked me specifically about the effect of devaluation on the White Paper on Fuel Policy. There have been arguments about this. Again, I will communicate my hon. Friend's views to the Minister.
The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) raised the whole issue of the Finance Bill and the guillotine Motion. Mr. Speaker said I would be out of order if I discussed this. This is a matter appropriate to the Motion. I understand


how the hon. Gentleman feels about it. There is no uncertainty about his position. He has made his views known. He is strongly opposed to taking the Finance Bill upstairs.
I do not want to enter into arguments about the policy on this because it would be wrong, but hon. Members who seem to support his point of view use language which to me, as an old campaigner, sounds rather extravagant. One hon. Member spoke about contempt. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) talked about the "brick wall of dictatorship". He said that we were destroying the House of Commons by design. I have heard this fine language on a debate of this kind before on many occasions over the years, but it does not get us anywhere. However, I understand the views of hon. Members.
I was asked about my intentions regarding by-elections. I was in no way trying to hide. This is a matter for the Patronage Secretary. I hope that there will soon be an announcement. I could not be specific about the date of an announcement, because this is a matter for the Patronage Secretary. It is not a matter for the Leader of the House to announce this to the House. That was what I endeavoured to convey. There have been cases before in previous Administrations where there has been a much longer period. 'The hon. Member for Orpington will know what I mean.

Mr. Peyton: It may be a matter for the Patronage Secretary, but the right hon. Gentleman knows that it is for him to arrange for the Patronage Secretary to make a statement. Will he do so next week?

Mr. Peart: I will have consultations with my right hon. Friend. It will not be long before he makes a statement. I should like to make certain which day and the timing of it. I have never thought of it in terms of a business statement on a Thursday.
Most hon. Members have devoted their speeches to the guillotine Motion on the

Finance Bill and on the Prices and Incomes Bill. The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) referred to Report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology. I am sorry that there has been some delay. I hope that the hon. Member for Canterbury will appreciate what I am saying. I have always believed in the development of Select Committees, but I want to see how they work. As Minister of Agriculture, I was a guinea-pig for one of the first Committees to be set up. I enjoyed my experience with that Committee, and I was pleased that its Report was debated yesterday. Hon. Members who spend a lot of time in and work hard on Specialist Committees dealing with important matters such as science and technology should be able to feel that their work is appreciated by those who are not on the Committee, and it is important that we should debate nuclear power and nuclear energy.

I hope that hon. Members will not be contemptuous about the business of the House, and say that we are discussing things in dribs and drabs. Last night the House debated the fishing industry, and next week we are to debate science and technology and nuclear energy which are fundamental to our industrial development. I am anxious that these Committees should succeed, and possibly become a permanent feature of our Parliamentary procedure. It is in that spirit that I approach the debate today.

Most of the arguments have been concentrated on two main items. I have given my reply, and I shall consider the points which have been raised during the debate.

Mr. Brian O'Malley (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): Mr. Brian O'Malley (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question put, That the Question be now put:—

The House Divided: Ayes 141, Noes 75.

Division No. 142.]
AYES
[7.2 p.m.


Allen, Scholefield
Barnes, Michael
Brooks, Edwin


Anderson, Donald
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)
Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)


Archer, Peter
Bishop, E. S.
Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)


Armstrong, Ernest
Blenkinsop, Arthur
Buchan, Norman


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Boyden, James
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Bradley, Tom
Coe, Denis




Conlan, Bernard
Jeger, George (Goole)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Dalyell, Tam
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.


Dewar, Donald
Kenyon, Clifford
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)


Dobson, Ray
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Probert, Arthur


Doig, Peter
Lawson, George
Rankin, John


Dunnett, Jack
Lipton, Marcus
Reynolds, G. W.


Eadie, Alex
McBride, Neil
Richard, Ivor


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
MacColl, James
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Ellis, John
Macdonald, A. H.
Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)


Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Faulds, Andrew
McNamara, J. Kevin
Roebuck, Roy


Fernyhough, E.
MacPherson, Malcolm
Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Ryan, John


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mallalieu,J.P.W.(Huddersfield, E.)
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Ford, Ben
Marks, Kenneth
Sheldon, Robert


Forrester, John
Marquand, David
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Fowler, Gerry
Mayhew, Christopher
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)
Millan, Bruce
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Freeson, Reginald
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Gardner, Tony
Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Skeffington, Arthur


Garrett, W. E.
Mitchell, R. C.(S'th'pton, Test)
Small, William


Gourlay, Harry
Moonman, Eric
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael


Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Tinn, James


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Urwin, T. W.


Hattersley, Roy
Moyle, Roland
Varley, Eric G.


Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Hilton, W. S.
Murray, Albert
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)
Newens, Stan
Watkins, David (Consett)


Hooley, Frank
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Wellbeloved, James


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
O'Malley, Brian
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Oram, Albert E.
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Howie, W.
Oswald, Thomas
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Hoy, James
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Winnick, David


Huckfleid, Leslie
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Woof, Robert


Hunter, Adam
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Yates, Victor


Hynd, John
Parker, John (Dagenham)



Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Parkin, Ben (Paddington, N.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Janner, Sir Barnett
Pavitt, Laurence
Mr. Joseph Harper and




Mr. J. D. Concannon.




NOES


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Hill, J. E. B.
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin
Ridsdale, Julian


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Hordern, Peter
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Bell, Ronald
Hunt, John
Russell, Sir Ronald


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Sharples, Richard


Biffen, John
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Silvester, Frederick


Boardman, Tom
Kershaw, Anthony
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Kirk, Peter
Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)


Chichester-Clark, R.
Lane, David
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Clegg, Walter
Lubbock, Eric
Teeling, Sir William


Crouch, David
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Eden, Sir John
Montgomery, Fergus
Ward, Dame Irene


Glyn, Sir Richard
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Weatherill, Bernard


Goodhart, Philip
Murton, Oscar
Webster, David


Goodhew, Victor
Onslow, Cranley
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Gresham Cooke, R.
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Williams, Donald (Dudley)


Grieve, Percy
Peel, John
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Peyton. John
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Gurden, Harold
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Woodnutt, Mark


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Worsley, Marcus


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Prior, J. M. L.



Harvie Anderson, Miss
Pym, Francis
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hastings, Stephen
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Mr. Jasper More and




Mr. Reginald Eyre.

Question put accordingly:—

The House divided: Ayes 148, Noes 33.

Division No. 143.]
AYES
[7.11 p.m


Allen, Scholefield
Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)


Anderson, Donald
Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Bidwell, Sydney


Archer, Peter
Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Bishop, E. S.


Armstrong, Ernest
Barnes, Michael
Blenkinsop, Arthur




Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles


Boyden, James
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Bradley, Tom
Howie, W.
Parkin, Ben (Paddington, N.)


Brooks, Edwin
Huckfield, Leslie
Pavitt, Laurence


Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)
Hunter, Adam
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Hynd, John
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Buchan, Norman
Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Janner, Sir Barnett
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Jeger, George (Goole)
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Probert, Arthur


Coe, Denis
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Rankin, John


Concannon, J. D.
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Reynolds, G. W.


Conlan, Bernard
Kenyon, Clifford
Richard, Ivor


Dalyell, Tam
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Lawson, George
Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Lee, John (Reading)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Dewar, Donald
Lipton, Marcus
Roebuck, Roy


Dickens, James
MacColl, James
Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)


Dobson, Ray
Macdonald, A. H.
Ryan, John


Doig, Peter
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Driberg, Tom
McNamara, J. Kevin
Sheldon, Robert


Dunnett, Jack
MacPherson,. Malcolm
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Eadie, Alex
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfield,E.)
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Ellis, John
Marks, Kenneth
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Ennals, David
Marquand, David
Skeffington, Arthur


Faulds, Andrew
Mayhew, Christopher
Small, William


Fernyhough, E.
Mendelson, J. J.
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Millan, Bruce
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael


Ford, Ben
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Swain, Thomas


Forrester, John
Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Tinn, James


Fowler, Gerry
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Urwin, T. W.


Fraser, John (Norwood)
Moonman, Eric
Varley, Eric G.


Freeson, Reginald
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Gardner, Tony
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Garrett, W. E.
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Watkins, David (Consett)


Gourley, Harry
Moyle, Roland
Wellbeloved, James


Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
Murray, Albert
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Harper, Joseph
Newens, Stan
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Winnick, David


Hattersley, Roy
O'Malley, Brian
Yates, Victor


Hazell, Bert
Oram, Albert E.



Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Orme, Stanley
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Hilton, W. S.
Oswald, Thomas
Mr. Neil McBride and


Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Mr. Ioan L. Evans.


Hooley, Frank
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)





NOES


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Goodhew, Victor
Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)


Baker, Kenneth
Gresham Cooke, R.
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Bell, Ronald
Grieve, Percy
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Biffen, John
Harvie Anderson, Miss
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Boardman, Tom
Hill, J. E. B.
Ward, Dame Irene


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Williams, Donald (Dudley)


Clegg, Walter
Lubbock, Eric
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Crouch, David
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Woodnutt, Mark


Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire.W.)
Onslow, Cranley
Worsley, Marcus


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon



Eden, Sir John
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Goodhart, Philip
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)
Mr. John Peyton and




Dr. Reginald Bennett.

Resolved,


That this House, at its rising on Friday, 31st May, do adjourn till Tuesday, 11th June.

Orders of the Day — HOVERCRAFT BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

7.20 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The House will be pleased to remember that it was a Briton, Mr. Christopher Cockerell, who pioneered the development of hovercraft. That pioneering lead has, thank goodness, so far been maintained, leading to developments like the bringing into commercial service on 1st August of the SRN 4, which can carry about 800 passengers, or 250 passengers and 30 cars, and which can do speeds up to 65 knots, with a range of 120 miles, and like the Hovermarine II, the rigid sidewall craft which is already in service, carrying 65 passengers, at 35 knots and with a range of 140 nautical miles.
This development over the last 15 or 20 years has been a fine example of the partnership of individuals, led, of course, by Mr. Cockerell, with the Government, through the National Research Development Council and the National Physical Laboratory, the Services and industry, led by such firms as the British Hovercraft Corporation, Hovermarine and many others. It is thanks to this partnership that our early lead has been maintained.
Now, in this Bill, we are asking the House to do some pioneering itself, because I believe that this is the first legislation in the world to deal particularly with hovercraft. It is important that we should give this lead, because we are the main manufacturers and designers and it is therefore in our interests to offer legislative guidelines to other countries. Perhaps, by so doing, we can encourage them to avoid in their own legislation provisions which might unduly restrict the expansion of this great new form of transport.
There are, however, even more urgent considerations. Already, in the Solent, across the Channel and elsewhere, commercial craft are operating. But there is great doubt about how they stand

before the law. We are not totally sure that they are legally covered in operating at all. The House will know that they operate at present under permits to fly issued on the advice of the Air Registration Board under the 1949 Civil Aviation Act. This system has worked reasonably well so far, but I hate to think what a harvest it might produce for the lawyers on the question of whether this new craft could possibly be considered an aeroplane or not. This doubt is reinforced by I.C.A.O. which recently declared specifically that hovercraft are not aeroplanes.
There is another need for urgency; the need for proper safety regulations. We are proposing to establish a system of safety certification for hovercraft which will replace the present system whereby hovercraft are issued with permits to fly. An order under the Bill will probably lay down certain operational requirements, the need for a certificate of fitness and so on. The Bill enables the Government to delegate such parts of the certification procedure as may be decided after further discussion, and, of course, we shall only delegate to competent bodies.
A point of extreme interest is that, as I have said, the Air Registration Board is at the moment doing this job and will have to continue doing it for some time to come. However, there is also the question of whether Lloyds Register should, as the classification society, be brought into this. After some discussion, I have decided that we should have a working party composed of representatives of the Air Registration Board, Lloyds Register and the industry, chaired or refereed, as it were, by the Board of Trade, to see what the best organisation is for dealing with this question of certification and safety.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: Does the hon. Gentleman intend that the committee should contain representatives of land interests, remembering that in some part of the world hovercraft fly over land alone and may, in some forms, be like a train? Will this matter be considered solely by shipping and aeronautical people?

Mr. Mallalieu: No. When I said representatives of industry I meant the producers of all types of hovercraft.
Another reason for some urgency is the question of liability. The Bill sets out the framework for a system of liability which combines the aviational Warsaw system for passenger liability and the shipping system under the Hague Rules for cargo and global liability. The main feature of the system is that there will be no contracting out of passenger liability. As hon. Members know, ships can contract out, but we feel that it would be unwise to spread that to a new form of transport. The limits for passenger and global liability will be specified by order, subject to the affirmative Resolution procedure. Here again we feel that there is overriding advantage in being able to change the limits more quickly by order than by fixing the limits in the Bill.
The Bill also takes powers to deal with another reasonably urgent matter, the question of noise. The industry and the Government, through the backing of the Ministry of Technology, has been conducting a great deal of research into noise, which is an extremely bothersome matter to some areas, including the constituency of the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt). As a result of this research, considerable improvements have been made.
The main trouble is the speed of the propeller tip. Experiments with the shape and size of propellers have produced a quite substantial diminution of noise compared with that of the earlier types. It is not possible yet to say for certain what noise limit ought to be set. There are experiments with entirely different systems of propulsion, such as water jets, which may make it possible to make regulations for noise at a lower level than we can make at present.
We do not want to do anything on noise which will seriously limit expansion of the industry. Equally, we have to have regard for the comfort of people who may be subjected to this noise. So we propose at a very early date to make regulations about such things as the routing of these craft and, as soon as we can, to bring in a noise certification system which will be similar to the certification systems we have proposed for aircraft.
Then there is the question of jurisdiction. If there happened to be a collision in the Channel at present there is no

certainty of which would be the appropriate court in which an action should lie. We have had representations and advice from the judges on this matter. We have decided that for hovercraft mainly in the marine element action should lie in the Admiralty Court. The House will understand that there are some grey areas here. A hovercraft may be operating mainly in the marine element but may make a certain part of its journey over land. We are retaining the right to legislate, possibly separately, for the hovercraft if it is travelling over land.

Dr. Bennett: Is this in Clause 1(1)(h)?

Mr. Mallalieu: No, this is under Clause 2, which deals with jurisdiction.
The House will see that we are asking for very wide powers. This is an enabling Bill. Hovercraft are a development where the possibilities and practices are changing, if not every month, at least every year. They are a development in which the application already spreads from land uses like trains, trailers, crop sprayers, through the amphibious skirt type of craft to types which are solely marine like the sidewall. In time—which I suspect will not be all that far distant—we are likely to have experiments with the idea of a hover ship which, depending on the sea state, can sail through the waves or float, hover, above it.
In such a development as this, we need flexibility. Because the Orders which will be needed to fill in the framework of the Bill must come before the House, we shall preserve Parliamentary control. We are not writing many things specifically into the Statute, but if in this fast changing world a new development makes some of our regulations obsolete or inappropriate, the form of the Bill enables us to make rapid adaptations.
I cannot say that hovercraft is the greatest industrial development of the past 10 or 20 years. I cannot say that because I am not sufficiently expert on all the other industrial and scientific developments which have taken place, but I can say, and I am sure the House will agree, that this development is a great one. It is perhaps the greatest development in transport for the last 20 years.
I believe that this Bill will further that development. In a sense it is an honour for all of us to play a small part in Parliamentary history by discussing this Bill today. I have pleasure in presenting it to the House.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I am sure the whole House is grateful to the Minister of State for the manner in which he has put the Bill before us this evening. As he said, it is a short but very important Bill. It is right that we should give it some attention.
We on this side of the House recognise that there is an urgent need for legislation; indeed, we pressed the Minister on this matter when discussing the Anchors and Chain Cables Bill—if that is not an altogether too painful memory for the Minister of State. I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) in his place. On 26th June last year my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) asked the Minister of State whether there was to be legislation, and he answered:
may I tell the Committee that we have been considering this matter for a considerable time and it is the hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to produce legislation which deals with hovercraft and not with ships or anything else".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th June. 1967 Vol. 749, c. 219.]
That was followed by a statement in July last year.
If the Bill was so urgent as that—and I believe it was—it seems to have been a powerful long time acoming. Now it has come we find, as the Minister of State said, that it is solely an enabling Bill. I do not believe there has been an enabling Bill like this since the Emergency Powers Bill at the beginning of the last war. This Bill contains virtually no substantive provisions. Almost the whole of the Bill is given over to conferring on the Government power to make Orders of one sort or another.
I believe it deserves special scrutiny because to a large extent the Government are here usurping the rôle of Parliament in making legislation and creating powers of delegated legislation which must be most carefully examined. It may well be that the delay and the reason why it is an enabling Bill can be explained. The Min-

ister of State has given one explanation; I believe one can find others.
The first explanation I offer is that there is a growing, if somewhat belated, recognition that we are now dealing with an entirely new transport animal. These are not ships; these are not aircraft; they are a tertium quid.
This subject provides a copybook example of the way in which institutional arrangements, set up some years ago, have been allowed to influence and dominate thinking in official circles as to how these new transport animals should be treated. I believe that it has been a major obstacle to the development of the necessary legal framework within which hovercraft should operate that those responsible for the administration of this aspect of affairs have had among them a preponderant influence of aviation interests. It is relatively simple to appreciate that in the first development of hovercraft it was argued, "These vehicles float on air. That is a form of flying. Therefore, they are aircraft". Therefore, those concerned in their manufacture, in their operation, and in their powering and driving, tended to be aviation specialists. All the thinking was that these vehicles were akin to aeroplanes.
This was extremely well put by the Air Cushion Vehicle Co-ordinating Committee, which published safety regulations in June, 1965, the opening paragraph of which said this:
In June 1960 it was officially decided that, pro tem, vehicles then described under the generic term hovercraft should be regarded as aircraft. They would operate under Permits to Fly issued by the Ministry of Aviation. … Also the arrangement whereby the Ministry consults the Air Registration Board regarding airworthiness of aircraft would be construed to include hovercraft.
This was, perhaps, a little surprising, because the title of the first British patent which was ever taken out in relation to hovercraft made no reference to aircraft. The patent was entitled:
Improvements in or relating to vehicles for travelling over land or water.
I believe that this recognised what we have now come to appreciate, namely, that hovercraft are essentially surface vehicles.
Yet we were very slow to recognise this. Mr. Cockerell himself, writing in an article four years ago, said this:
When the newspapers first heard about the Hovercraft, they classified it as an aircraft,


and, indeed, most members of the aircraft industry see it in that light, and it is so licensed. I attended a lecture of the Helicopter Society, and the eminent chairman took it for granted that it was of the genus 'helicopter'—a bad helicopter, of course, but since it could hover, a helicopter. Articles in the motoring press look on it as a new-fangled motor car—after all, cars have been riding on four air cushions for years. The Navy naturally classifies it as a ship—it goes over the sea, doesn't it?
The truth is that the hovercraft is both all of these things and none of them. Yet institutionally there can be little doubt but that we in this country have allowed the hovercraft to be entirely dominated by the aviation tradition. There has been a widespread fear, which still exists in many circles, that this will continue to be so. Hon. Members may have seen the report of the speech made by Mr. C. D. J. Bland, the managing director of Hoverwork Limited, to a conference held early last month. Mr. Bland said this:
Let us not allow the legislation bandwagon to be made top-heavy in this country by people Jumping on from the passing and much-battered one marked 'British Civil Aircraft Industry'.
This disquiet is nothing new. Since hovercraft first went into commercial operation seven years ago, there has been growing disquiet. As long ago as 1962, a symposium was held by the Institute of Navigation at which a paper was read by Lieutenant-Commander Hardwick, who was then the chairman of a group known as the Operational Requirements Panel. Discussing the rules for the navigation of hovercraft, especially in crowded waters, a member of the audience said this:
It would appear that the speakers' views tonight on collision avoidance were coloured by their background of air traffic control.
Indeed, anybody who has seen hovercraft operating in the Solent or elsewhere will realise that this is still nothing less than the truth. Other speakers had taken a different line and had provoked a very interesting reaction in the discussion, that in fact this aviation influence was completely dominating the operation of hovercraft.
I believe that much of the delay and the reason why we even now have only an enabling Bill is due to this basic, almost psychological difficulty which people brought up and nurtured in the very distinguished aviation tradition in Britain have in realising that we were here dealing with something which was not an aeroplane.
A second reason is, I think, to be found in the almost inevitable and instinctive apprehension and suspicion which in official circles always seems to be aroused by something new. I do not say this in any accusatory tone at all. I merely state it for a fact. Perhaps the most memorable example of this was when we were discussing on the Finance Bill two years ago new powers for the Commissioners of Customs and Excise over the operation of hovercraft—now Section 10 of the Finance Act, 1966. On that memoratble occasion the Chief Secretary to the Treasury committed himself to a proposition which is, in the light of anything which one knew then or which one has come to know since, perhaps one of the most remarkable propositions ever given vent to in the House. The right hon. Gentleman described the hovercraft as
the ideal smugglers' vehicle—it can do everything that a smuggling vehicle can do and more".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th June, 1966; Vol. 729. c. 1597.]
That will rank as one of the gems of hovercraft lore. It came only a few months after we had had a hovercraft up the Thames, when every Committee of the House had had to suspend its proceedings because of the noise outside.
The third reason—here, perhaps, I am on closer ground to the Minister of State—is that we are in the midst of a very rapidly developing technology. We have had the new types of hovercraft in the sidewall, as the Minister of State mentioned. We are moving into new uses for hovercraft—moving pallets in factories, moving heavy loads across bridges so that the load is spread, even mowing grass and crop spraying. We are moving into the bigger sizes, the S.R.N.4 and, in the next two or three years, the 125-ton Hovermarine H.M.4.
It is extremely difficult to envisage what the future will bring in this remarkable sector; things are changing so rapidly. I entirely agree with the Minister of State that the last thing that we want is to wrap this industry in a legislative straitjacket which would hamper its future. There is an enormously promising development here. Britain is a world leader. We are having new firms, growing firms, and a rising overseas interest in the products of the industry.
It is essential that the legislative framework should be established in a form that allows this to happen. We on this side of the House accept that many of these matters cannot be spelled out in detail in the Bill.
The Minister of State has been good enough to describe the details of the Bill. We shall, no doubt, have a chance to probe the details in Committee. One thing which is bound to strike anyone who studies the Bill is the astonishing variety of the legislation which is necessary to be adapted to take account of the hovercraft development. There are the obvious Acts like the Carriage by Air Act, 1961, the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, and the Administration of Justice Act, 1956. But we wander into some of the real statutory byways, with the Explosives Act, 1875, the Prevention of Damage by Pest Act, 1849, and the Docking and Nicking of Horses Act, 1949. I shall be fascinated to study the details of how that Act comes to be relevant.
I shall refer in the rest of my remarks to only three matters—the definition of "hovercraft", the procedures for certification, and some of the international implications. I want to follow very closely what the Minister of State said on that last issue.
The definition of "hovercraft" is contained in Clause 4(1) and is:
'hovercraft' means a vehicle which is designed to be supported when in motion wholly or partly by air expelled from the vehicle to form a cushion of which the boundaries include the ground, water or other surface beneath the vehicle".
One thinks of a hovercraft as essentially a vehicle which slides over the top of whatever surface it is on with its skirt just touching the surface and the whole weight borne on the air cushion. But the developments to which the Minister referred, particularly the sidewall machine, make that concept, as the only one, out of date.
I should like to read one sentence from an article by Mr. Norman Piper, managing director of Hovermarine, in a recent issue of the Financial Times, about the H.M.2, which has recently been launched. He wrote:
The air cushion is contained along its sides by rigid side walls which remain immersed by

an average of nine inches when hovering and by flexible skirts at the bow and the stern.
Therefore, it is obvious that it is not wholly supported by air and that is why the definition includes the words "or partly". Is there no limit? Somebody suggested to me the other day that if one turned the exhausts of the Queen Elizabeth upside down she would be within this definition, because she would be partly supported by the air expelled from the ship. Clearly, that is not intended.
I therefore draw the Minister's attention to the definition which has been put into the guidance notes prepared by Lloyds Register of Shipping, because it is different in this point. It says:
… a self-propelled vehicle which operates amphibiously or only over water, and is capable of supporting at least 75 per cent. of its fully loaded weight both whilst stationary and whilst underway on one or more cushions of air.
One of the matters to which the Committee should give urgent consideration when examining the Bill is whether that 75 per cent. test, or something of that sort, should not be added to the definition of hovercraft, because otherwise we are liable to land ourselves in a nonsense.
My second point is the question of the procedures for certification and registration. As the Minister said, this is now within the powers of the Air Registration Board. I would add that certainly until recently it has been widely assumed inside and outside the industry that the Board would continue to be responsible for this matter. Of course, there would be a different register. There would be a register of hovercraft separate from aircraft but the Board would be responsible for carrying out the procedures. This would inevitably follow because of the dominance of those nurtured in the aviation tradition in this country who have come to be foster-parent of the hovercraft. There is also a tendency to say—and I do not think that people are to be criticised for this, because it is entirely natural—that possession is nine points of the law. If one has something working apparently reasonably satisfactory already, one tends not to want to change it.
I said "until recently", but I believe now that members of the hon. Gentleman's Department are becoming aware that this is not necessarily the right answer.


There are powerful arguments against letting the Air Registration Board having a monopoly of certification. This is not in the best interests of the industry and those who will be operating hovercraft, and not necessarily in the national interests, because of the enormous potentiality for export.
Inevitably, the Air Registration Board, with the best will in the world, is bound to import into its dealings with hovercraft, practices, standards, concepts, testing procedures and so on which are more appropriate to aircraft than they would be to this new animal. I do not necessarily say that hovercraft should be regarded solely as ships. Not at all; but at the same time it becomes apparent that the larger vehicles are becoming more and more like ships.
A few of the points which seem to indicate more and more that it is perhaps the marine people who should become more involved in this rather than the aircraft people, are as follows. First is the question of safety. The essential fact about a hovercraft is that in the event of an emergency it sits on top of the water and therefore from the point of view of the structure, of its strength, the escape of passengers, and the stresses and strains which the vehicle must bear, it must be able to float on the top of the water and survive. This is wholly foreign to an aircraft but which every naval architect and surveyor is brought up on from his youth. Or take the question of fire. The essential thing about a ship which catches fire is that the structures should be able to endure a certain amount of damage and still survive, floating on the water.

Mr. Frank Hooley: There have been in the past aircraft which both landed and took off on the water.

Mr. Jenkin: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but there are very few of them today. Like the zeppelin, and the dirigible, gas-filled balloon, they seem to have disappeared. We are dealing, on the one hand, with aircraft as we understand them and as most of us fly in them and, on the other hand, ships.
Take the question of wave conditions. The Air Registration Board has a simple test of sea-worthiness of hovercraft based on wave height; but this is a notoriously difficult chink to estimate and varies greatly from place to place. The Lloyd's Register people on the other hand, have

an elaborate statistical concept based on wind speed and the "fetch" of an area of water. All the captain of the craft needs to know is the wind speed and the "fetch" of the water he will be travelling over and he will know at a glance whether or not it is safe to go out.
Or take the construction. Here it seems to me that there are natural fears of both camps. The marine interests fear that the aviation people will import into their standards vastly expensive, multi-layer honeycomb materials based on their aircraft experience, and will insist on strict regulations and unduly high standards of construction. The matter was put very well in a recent article in the New Scientist which says:
One effect of this is to make aeroplane parts several times more costly than similar components in everyday use. This is felt right down to simple components like locks and switches. On two grounds this rigid control is desirable in aircraft. It makes for safety in the air and it serves as a protection for those on the ground against the risk of things falling on them from above. The hovercraft, with a ceiling of perhaps 1 ft. to 4 ft., does not present either hazard.
The aviation people, on the other hand, fear that the shipbuilding people will insist of great solid plates of two-inch thick steel which will make it impossible for these aircraft to fly. I think that both fears are misconceived, but they exist.
There are also the differences in procedures during construction. The Air Registration Board approves the constructors and then relies on their skill, standards and integrity to ensure that the standards are maintained. This was made very clear in the recent report of the Board of Trade on the safety performance of United Kingdom airline operators, which said this about the A.R.B.:
Suitable organisations, invariably a department or division of a constructing company, are approved for this purpose so that responsibility for much of the detailed proof of compliance is delegated, but the ARB conducts extensive and sufficiently detailed investigations to assure itself that the organisation's airworthiness investigation is adequate.
The classification societies—and here one thinks particularly of Lloyds Register—work on a very different procedure. They carry out a continuous survey throughout the planning, design and construction of any new vehicle for which they are responsible, with detailed supervision right the way through. They


have vast experience of the marine environment. There have been great troubles with aircraft engines designed to work on a constant load having to operate in a variable environment. Lloyds knows the strength necessary if things drop on the top of a vehicle from, say, the quayside; it knows about protecting things from spray, and it knows about anchors and chain cables. Therefore, I argue from this that there are strong grounds for ensuring that the aviation experts, bred in the traditions of the aircraft industry, should not necessarily have a monopoly of the certification and registration of hovercraft.
Finally, I turn to the international aspects. I believe that there are three factors here. First, and perhaps most important, is that it is essential to establish a form of certification universally recognised in the world, as, for instance, the Lloyds Register Survey for Ships is universally recognised. The A.R.B. has agreements with some countries for mutual recognition of registration. This is perhaps a good deal less than adequate, and we should aim at the higher standard of the Lloyds Register.
There is, secondly, the question of the international treatment of hovercraft. I remind the House of what the Minister of State said—that the I.C.A.O. Conference has really thrown the hovercraft out of its nest. As someone commented recently, "they are now no one's baby." This gives a great opportunity to us to set an example. We are uniquely well placed to do so. We are undoubtedly the leaders in hovercraft technology, with a great fund of expertise, and we must not put it in peril by setting up unimaginative institutional arrangements based on no better principle than continuing what already exists.
I very much welcome and was delighted to hear the Minister's suggestion that he would set up a high-powered working party to distil from the existing corpus of knowledge about hovercraft the best and most relevant practices and procedures so as to build up a distinctive body of universally recognised hovercraft principles. I believe that in doing so we can take from aviation, marine and land experience, moulding all of these factors to adapt them to the rovercraft in all its likely environments.
With energy and imagination and an open and fairminded approach—which I am satisfied that the Minister will bring to this matter—we can set a precedent which would be followed throughout the world. This could, in turn, lead to the establishment of an international organisation which surely must come as international hovercraft travel is growing each year. I beg the Minister to call on the best brains from wherever he can get them and urged them to recognise once and for all that the hovercraft is a new and different form of transport—quite different from anything which has gone before. He should ask them to lay aside their sectional interests for the benefit of the whole industry and to create the new institutional, legal and technical framework which will be needed if this development is to yield its maximum potential.
The Bill provides scope for all this to be done. The industry has great achievements to its credit in the past. I believe that the Bill will give it every possible opportunity for the future and we, therefore, welcome its appearance.

8.4 p.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley: I am glad to learn that the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) and his colleagues welcome new procedures and new rules at least in some directions. After listening to the last debate, I gained the impression that they were implacably opposed to any kind of new procedures in any direction. I am relieved to hear that, towards technology, they have some open minds, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman's friends will follow him in the tenor of his remarks.
I am not qualified to follow the hon. Gentleman in his historical survey of the development of the hovercraft. Nor can I say whether it is a good vehicle for smuggling kegs of brandy. But what he said about universal certification is extremely important, and the point I want to put to my hon. Friend is whether the lack of a legal framework for this vehicle has impeded its export. I have the impression that we have not succeeded in obtaining the international market for this invention which it deserves.
There are types of terrain in different parts of the world which are surely


specially suited to the use and adaptation of this kind of vehicle. I have in mind those countries where there is a large river delta or large rivers flowing through relatively flat country and where a hovercraft could impartially skim over reasonably flat land surfaces and water. They would have a tremendous advantage in such territory.
In this country, a hovercraft could hardly progress 100 yards over land without hitting a halt sign or lamp post, but there are vast areas in Africa and Latin America with huge expanses of relatively level scrub or savannah land intersected by great rivers, and I imagine that there a vehicle of this kind could provide a peculiary advantageous form of transport.
This was just an idea in my mind until the other day, when I discovered that a scientific expedition has been into the hinterland of the Amazon with one of these vehicles, and this, of course, is exactly the kind of terrain where it had occurred to me the hovercraft would be particularly useful. I have wondered whether it has been purely economic considerations or the lack of a legal framework for operating hovercraft which has so far mitigated against their widespread sale.
I endorse strongly what the hon. Gentleman has said about the need to establish some universally acceptable framework of law and regulation and certification for the operation of this new form of transport if it is to become generally accepted. It is immensely important for this country, which has a lead in this form of technology and should be able to exploit it in markets which can be creative. But I can well understand that potential operators will hesitate to buy it and operate it if they are uncertain, in terms of insurance and safety and of possible claims for damages or accidents, about how they will stand in law.
Therefore, I regard this Bill and the various regulations and so on which will no doubt be presented later as an important step forward for this country in exploiting technology in which we are in advance of the rest of the world.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. Mark Woodnutt: I want to put at rest the mind of the

hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley). I assure him that both the British Hovercraft Corporation and Britten-Norman have agents all over the world and that between 5 and 20 hovercraft have been sold to other countries and are operating on a world-wide basis. No stone is being left unturned. Yesterday, for example, I was in the Isle of Wight with a party of M.P.s from Iran who went to look at the B.H.C. set-up. Iran has ordered two of the machines which are being built at East Cowes.
I thank you for calling me, Mr. Speaker, because the hovercraft industry and the operators are vital to the Isle of Wight as well as to the national economy. Indeed, it would be reasonable to claim that the Isle of Wight is the home of the hovercraft. It was invented, designed and developed there and is now in regulation production both by the B.H.C. and Britten-Norman.
We have heard discussion about noise. The latest cushion craft whose trials I saw 10 days ago—the CC-7 of Britten-Norman—is jet-propelled and has a reduced noise-level which is rather less than the noise of the average speed boat. This is considerably less than hovercraft propelled in the conventional fashion. We also have in the Island the only two regular, scheduled operational passenger-carrying services in the world, operating the whole year round. For those of us who have had faith in this entirely new and revolutionary form of transport, since the beginning, when the inventor, Christopher Cockerell first conceived the idea while successfully experimenting in his bath, it is very rewarding to see this young and courageous industry, if not firmly established, then at least enjoying a very vigorous adolescence.
Since the announcement by the Government of their intention to introduce this legislation, I have wondered at the wisdom of being so hasty. None of us has yet sufficient experience to know precisely what sort of legislation is needed. The proof of this is in the Bill, which as has already been said by the Minister of State and by my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin). It gives the Government the power to legislate by Order in Council as and when required over a very wide area indeed. My fear is that the House will be presented over a relatively short


period of time with a mass of Orders in Council and we shall finish up with hotch-potch legislation.
Nevertheless, on balance I welcome the Bill, subject to certain safeguards, and am comforted by the very cautious way in which the Minister of State has presented it to us. As to definition, I share the views already expressed and welcome the fact that the Bill recognises a hovercraft as a completely new category of vehicle—neither a ship nor an aircraft. Some of our law relating to ships would obviously not be suitable for hovercraft, and most of our law relating to aircraft would be quite unsuitable. This is a new category of vehicle, and I am very pleased it is recognised as such.
I am told by the British Hovercraft Corporation that the American and Japanese legislation that has been introduced specifically recognises hovercraft as a ship. If this is the case it could lead to awful conflictions, if we have craft operating in international water classified as one thing by one nation and another by another nation. The Minister of State would be wise to consider some sort of international body to look at the implication of these laws before we become too deeply involved in legislation.
My main concern is about the accuracy of the definition in the Bill. Broadly it defines hovercraft correctly, but having consulted with the experts in the Isle of Wight—and I am no expert in aerodynamics—I am told that the definition, while broadly defining a hovercraft, excludes a hovercraft such as SRN6 when it is operating in what they class the "trapped air mode"—that is when it is entering harbour. I am told by the designers that in this condition it does not expel air but merely maintains it under pressure beneath the aircraft. This is a minor point, but we must take it into account if we are to get this definition accurate.
The other point drawn to my attention is that which has already been made partially by my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford, namely that this definition includes other vehicles. It would include a helicopter operated in ground effect, since this expels air and forms a cushion between the rotor and the ground. If one takes this line of

reasoning further, which I hesitate to do as I am not an expert, I am told that, strictly speaking, any aircraft is supported by pressure which forms a cushion whose boundaries include the surface of the earth and the aircraft. This is the case with aircraft flying at a high altitude, but this extends over a considerable area, and the argument is rather a tentative one. It is clear that when the Bill merges from Committee the definition must be more accurate than it is now.
I have a brief definition here, which has been suggested by the British Hovercraft Corporation, and I would like to put it on record. The Corporation does not claim that it is the best definition. It says that it could still be improved, but it is more precise than that which we have in the Bill. It says first of all that the vehicle should be called an air cushion vehicle and that it is necessary in the definition to define a technical term known as ground effect. This is the definition which the Corporation has given:
A hovercraft is an air cushion vehicle.
An air cushion vehicle means a vehicle or craft which depends for its functioning on ground cushion effect and is incapable of rising into the air to a height greater than that at which, in respect of any such vehicle or craft, the ground cushion effect ceases to have any, or substantial influence. For this purpose, the expression 'ground cushion effect' shall mean the load-bearing and lifting propensities exhibited by a mass of air or other gas vapour when compressed and constrained to interpose itself as a cushion between the underside of such vehicle or craft and substantially within its platform and the surface over which it is intended to operate.
I have been studying this for about four days and I get more confused every time I look at these definitions. I have discussed it with the experts and at the time I was quite convinced that their definition is a much more precise and accurate one than that in the Bill.
The Government seek wide powers to introduce Orders in Council. I hope that they will exercise considerable restraint and only recommend Orders when they are absolutely necessary. Having heard the Minister of State, I think that this will be so. Nothing is worse than legislation consisting of masses of unrelated Orders which may conflict with one another. I hope the Minister recognises that eventually, and again not too hastily, a consolidating Bill will be required.
Second, I hope the Government will recognise the importance of consultations with manufacturers and with operators before Orders in Council are prepared. The operators and manufacturers have most of the know-how on hovercraft, and it is essential that they should be consulted before the Orders are prepared, so that restriction on practical research can be avoided. We should also avoid restricting the opening up of new operational services. The Bill should provide that consultations will take place with industry and operators before Orders in Council are placed before the House.
I am a little disturbed to read that only Orders made under Clause 1 (1), paragraph (f) to (k), and subsection (3) (f) are subject to a Resolution of both Houses of Parliament. This complex legislation is being done by Orders in Council and, therefore, all Orders ought to be subject to a Resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
My third comment concerns the amateur hovercraft operators. There is in existence a hover club of Great Britain. It is a flourishing, active and vigorous organisation. It holds rallies and meetings all over the country, and it has a very large volume of support. Young people who take part in this worthwhile and interesting activity make everybody hovercraft-conscious wherever their rallies are held. They also contribute something very worthwhile towards research and development. I would not like to think that in making Orders in Council amateur hovercraft enthusiasts are forgotten. It would be quite easy in catering for the professional and for the industry to restrict the activity of the amateurs.
I ask the Minister to bear this in mind, and also to bear in mind that, if an Order cannot be so drawn as to make a distinction between the one and the other where necessary, then Clause 1(3)(a) can be used in differentiating between different types of hovercraft.
The definition of hoverports includes any piece of beach which may be used for landing a hovercraft. This could be restrictive, and I would like to see included in that definition a stitpulation that it is for hovercraft carrying freight and/or passengers for reward. I am thinking again of the amateurs and not

wishing to be unduly restrictive on their activity.
I support the Bill, subject to the reservations I have made, and I would take this opportunity of paying a tribute to all those who are engaged in this very vigorous industry.
There are four SRN4s now under construction at a cost of £1¾ million, each capable of carrying 30 cars and 250 passengers. When one realises that one of those will be operative and crossing the Channel in August of this year, and that it will do the journey in 20 minutes, one wonders whether it is worth while proceeding with the Channel Tunnel.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: In the course of this interesting debate some important ideas have been put forward. When the hovercraft principle was first developed and put forward by Mr. Christopher Cockerell 12 years ago, what was in mind then was purely an amphibious vehicle. Since then the principle has branched out in many directions.
We still have the amphibious craft that goes over land and sea. Second, we now have a wholly marine craft with side-walls and propellers in the water that goes purely on the water. Third, we have a land vehicle which goes over land, mud flats, deserts or the frozen wastes of Canada. Fourth, we have the agricultural vehicles for crop spraying. Fifth, there is the weight-lifting vehicle for abnormal loads on the roads; sixth, those that are used for the movement of heavy storage tanks and the like; seventh, fork lift trucks on the hover principle; eighth, pallet container movers; ninth, cranes tenth, the hover train which can be pulled by the linear induction motor. All sorts of applications are being developed at the present time, and there are no doubt more to come.
The hovercraft is becoming a very specialised tree with a great many branches and, in my view, we must have separate rules and regulations for each application of the hovercraft principle as it comes along. I welcome the Bill because it gives flexibility for this to be done, if indeed it goes far enough. For instance, I am not certain whether it includes, or will include, agricultural vehicles that are worked on the hovercraft principle and which go only on farms.
I will confine myself to the marine vehicle, which is the chief form of hovercraft. That is an air cushion vehicle that spends 95 per cent. of its time on any journey going over the water. This must be treated as a ship, or mainly as a ship. It is subject to the same rules of the road as other ships. Its element is the sea. It does not ride completely clear of the waves. It responds to and contours the waves, but it does not ride quite clear of them.
In my view, hovercraft must be subject to the Board of Trade and Lloyds like any other ship. In particular, as hovercraft are now in close competition with hydrofoil craft, having about the same speed and commercial applications, and, as hydrofoils are treated as ships and made subject to Board of Trade regulations and Lloyds registration, that is an additional reason why hovercraft should be put on a similar footing. We may have to temper the wind to both hovercraft and hydrofoils, however, because they are both very fast marine craft and are not exposed to the sea for long periods: for example, they are not at sea for weeks, only for hours.
I reinforce my plea that they should be treated as marine vehicles for a number of reasons, one or two of which have been mentioned. The first is that of international considerations in that other countries already treat them as ships. Then there are safety factors concerning bulkheads, liferafts and lifejackets. Although they are lighter than usual, they must have a full complement of safety equipment in case people should fall into the sea. I must say that I much prefer the marine philosophy of trying to save every soul on board. The aircraft philosophy is not so exacting. If there is an air crash, frequently one feels that the operating company think that they have done very well if they have saved four or five people.
There are certain aircraft ideas built into hovercraft which I do not like very much. The SRN 4 has a gas turbine on the roof of the cabin, which is protected only by a very thin steel sheet. I understand that it is about 100th of an inch thick. That may be satisfactory for aircraft purposes, but that sort of thing is not good marine practice. Then there must be fairness between hydrofoils and

hovercraft. A hydrofoil has to carry a 7 per cent. penalty in payload because it is treated as a ship, whereas a hovercraft is not.
Lastly, the staff of the Air Registration Board is grossly overworked. The Edwards Report on the charter aircraft companies brought that out very clearly. There are not enough inspecting officers to go round and, if the hovercraft industry became a very big one, they would not be able to do their job properly. I conclude, therefore, that we must have a law for each special application of hovercraft.
Of course, there is nothing new under the sun. At a very interesting conference on hovercraft and hydrofoil craft held yesterday, all sorts of people gave different views on the operation and running costs of various kinds of craft. Mr. L. Heyward of Westland Aircraft told the conference of a Swedish philosopher and scientist named Swedenborg who produced a hovercraft model in 1716 which was worked by pedals and a pump. Apparently it hovered off the ground, but an engine would have been necessary for it to be efficient, and anyone using it would have been in danger of losing an arm or leg. Then, in 1912, a man called A. U. Alcock of Perth, Australia, produced a hovercraft of sorts which consisted of a wooden platform with compressors and a propellor. He called it "Floating Traction". With his daughter on it, he demonstrated it in Perth and in this country. Then, I remember reading that in the last century, river craft on the Mississippi worked with air cushions beneath them to give them extra lift. The British invention, however, takes the form of a peripheral circular air cushion beneath the vehicle to make it stable and provide complete lift.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt) has pointed out, there are many problems remaining in the hovercraft industry. One of them is the cost per ton knot. As Lord Wynne-Jones commented in another place in the course of his very interesting speech, these vehicles must be looked at from an economic point of view, and he referred to their cost per ton knot. It is speed, multiplied by the tonnage, multiplied by the cost. He pointed out that the SRN 6 worked out at £600 per ton


knot and the SRN 4 at £400 per ton knot, which is as high as a Boeing aircraft. The ordinary ferry, on the other hand, works out at about £200 per ton knot. In the case of the SRN 6, a third of its horsepower is taken up in lifting it off the water. Many of us doubt whether too sophisticated versions of hovercraft will be economic. They have to be made as simply as possible. In other words, what we need is the simplicity of marine construction.
I remember a few years ago a man telling me that he made seats both for London buses and aircraft. He said that it was a marvellous business because the seats that he made for aeroplanes were almost the same as those that he made for London buses, but that he was able to charge three times as much for aircraft seats. That is why it seems to me to be so important that we should get marine constructors with simple applications, rather than aircraft people making these forms of hovercraft. I was very pleased to see Vosper and Hovermarine entering the business, with their experience of ships and marine construction, which with any luck should be cheaper than aircraft construction.
Subject to these few points—and, no doubt, many other points which will be raised on Committee—I support the Bill, but I hope it is going to cover every application, including agriculture, abnormal loads on roads, and all the rest, which will come along in due course.

8.36 p.m.

Mr. Alan Lee Williams: I want to intervene on a very narrow point and will not detain the House for any length of time. I am particularly concerned about the definition of a hovercraft and a hydrofoil, because if it is defined as a ship there are going to be certain difficulties as regards the River Thames. At the present moment, ships can be navigated on the River Thames only by qualified navigational officers or with the help of Trinity House pilots. So, if the definition of a hydrofoil or a hovercraft is that, a high degree of navigational skill is certainly going to be required for what is essentially a small craft.
On the other hand, if the definition is "a small craft", as far as the River Thames is concerned this will entitle Thames watermen and lightermen to navigate the craft within the landward

limits of the River Thames. I would seek assurance from the Minister that, if this is the case, the ancient rights of watermen, going back to 1514, will be honoured in respect of hydrofoils and hovercraft.

8.37 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: It is a far cry from that modest little Anchors and Chain Cables Bill, in which the nautical characteristics of hovercraft were first discussed, and that Finance Bill to which my hon. Friend has already referred, when we first heard about the ideal smugglers' vehicle, to the attempt at a definitive Bill concerning hovercraft which we have before us tonight. At first sight, of course, one's response is perhaps, as it has been in other instances, that here is a Bill which gives the Government powers to do anything. We are accustomed to these from this Administration: they come on all subjects. But on this occasion I can say quite fairly that this is almost certainly the only form in which such a Bill could be drafted on this particular subject. The Minister has clothed much of the Bill in his statement and has given us some idea of what it should look like. This makes it a little less bare than the original statement, which really gave one absolutely no clue about the intentions of the Government. We have not got much to go on yet, but this must mean that we are going to have a very interesting Committee stage on this Bill. There is going to be a tremendous lot of work to do on it.
The basic point which every hon. Member who has spoken has picked up is the difficulty about definition. The hon. Member who spoke last but who has not remained in the Chamber in the customary manner, I suppose because he has had to go and do something else, brought this up and tried to get some definition which would not infringe existing rights. Others of my hon. Friends have brought up various forms of definition and I think that we are going to have quite a job. The definition and registration of these things are still not forecast even in the Minister's statement. At least tonight we know what they are not going to be, and it is the first time we have had that information.
We know that hovercraft will not be aircraft. That, at least, is something. My hon. Friends have adduced a variety of arguments on that point, and I agree with pretty well all of them. It has


been ridiculous to have these craft regarded as aircraft. Even when wearing their "maxi" skirts they cannot rise more than two or three feet, and in their usual "mini" skirts they are only a matter of inches off the ground or water surface. To call a hovercraft an aircraft was a nonsense, especially as one of the earlier developments was done by the Chrysler motor company in America. That development was going on concurrently with the work of the N.R.D.C. in this country, and the vehicle was intended to be nothing but a road vehicle.
We shall have great difficulties in arriving at a definition. I join other hon. Members in saying that we want the hovercraft divorced from the aircraft world, and I should be glad to see it divorced, also, from some of the aircraft techniques. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham-Cooke) gave us some of the terribly damning statistics of cost for the aircraft type of hovercraft. We are not here concerned to legislate for the economics of the matter, but it is generally true that hovercraft are required to work in places where there are not already existing transport facilities. The countries where hovercraft will be of value in that way cannot afford the cost of aircraft-type manufacture applied to a land vehicle. We have a long way to go yet in exploring the possibilities of substitution of bent sheet-metal by, perhaps, balsa wood and in investigating the use of other materials.
We shall have to spend a long time on the definition in Committee. As my Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt) told us, when a hovercraft is moving off the beach and going on to water, it often travels on trapped air other than air which it has itself expelled. This puts it, so to speak, on all fours with the ordinary planing speed-boat, the pleasure speed-boat which whizzes around off our shores and is generally slithering along on a carpet of bubbles trapped between itself and the water. We want to make sure that the definition of hovercraft does not by any mischance include that sort of thing.
When I happened, most regrettably, to be torpedoed, the ships in which I was on both occasions remained afloat for quite some time because they were filled with

empty oil drums put there for just such an emergency. We must be careful that things which enclose a great deal of built-in bouyancy and happen to become waterlogged do not somehow become translated into hovercraft. I am mentioning these points because it will be the marginal cases which cause the difficulty, as in any question of definition.
I come now to what I regard as one of the biggest points of all. I am surprised that there has been no reference to it in the debate. I am speaking quite late on, and I thought that somebody would pinch the point before I could use it. I refer to the rule of the road. I am reminded—with my legal training—of the famous case of R. v. Haddock, Sir Alan Herbert's case which arose on the Putney tow path. The infernal Mr. Haddock was rowing a dinghy at a time of abnormally high spring tide. He met a car coming in the opposite direction and, being afloat, insisted on his right of way. The car had to keep on the river side of the two path, where it went into a few more inches of water so that the engine stopped. The police brought a case against Mr. Haddock for sabotaging the car.
That is not altogether pure fantasy in the present context. In the constituency of my Member of Parliament, there is a vast expanse of flat sand called Ryde Sand, which is traversed by hovercraft frequently. This sand is not particularly firm, but it is firm enough. I have seen motor cars on it. If hovercraft going over the sand obey the rule of the sea, port to port, and keep to the right and cars going over the sand obey the rule of the road and keep to the left, I foresee some interesting collisions occurring.
The Bill has made no provision for a firm rule of the road concerning these machines. I admit we are putting a problem which is almost insuperable, because any rule of the road that we make for these machines will have to apply equally to the grass cutter or lawn mower which is pushed along and works on a hover basis. Therefore, we shall have to do some careful thinking about that in Committee. Anyway, that is one point which has been completely missed.
I will not detain the House longer. The rest will be a most interesting Committee stage. There will be plenty to


do. I do not know whether it will be the Committee or the Minister's high-powered working party which will have to do most of the thinking, but all of us will be scratching our heads a fair amount before the Bill emerges as an Act of Parliament.
I commend the Government for managing to squeeze it in, despite the disarray in the Government's affairs to which I alluded earlier today. I think that this part of the Government's legislation will be given the welcome that it deserves.

8.46 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: This Bill is certainly interesting, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) has made it even more interesting by what he has said.
I have a great constituency interest in the matter, because the Isle of Thanet, and Ramsgate in particular, will, we hope, provide the first major hoverport in this country. We also have an international interest, because we have been able to welcome to our shores those from other countries who are combining in the operation, from a Swedish background, to provide the company know-how necessary to become the first major private-enterprise operators, although now established as a firm British concern.
It is important to remember that this is an international Bill, not merely for consumption in this country. It is the forerunner for providing the framework of legislation which will obviously be carefully scrutinised in due course by every country in the world as they in turn proceed to use hovercraft, whether they have hovercraft of this nature intended primarily for marine or other purposes. Thus, this country will export not merely the skills of Britain in the manufacture of hovercraft; we hope to teach other countries something of their operation. We propose then to show them how the fine Government brains of this country can introduce the right definitions and legislation, so that they will have the know-how for regulating registration and the necessary safety and other controls to secure that the public can enjoy this new invention to the full.
When one cannot define something it is sometimes better not to try to do so.

In my view, the hovercraft is not a marine craft; it is not a road vehicle; and it is not an air vehicle. It is a new vehicle. We will not be able to define it, as I see it, as a marine vehicle or an air vehicle or a road vehicle. The simple fact is that it is a combination of all three, according to where it is used. Thus, all the legislation necessary to control its effects will mean that when it is being used on the sea it will have to conform to the regulations relating to the sea. When it is being used primarily as an instrument in the air, it will be subject to certain of the rules laid down for air traffic, and the problems will not be the same as when one wants to use it on land. When it is to be used as a hover train, no doubt it will have to conform to the rules for the passage of trains.
My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt) raised the question of hover clubs. I am anxious that we should give real encouragement to the amateurs. I remember how much active discouragement there was when, as a young man, one wanted to fly. Older members will remember that when we were young we were all pilots. Prior to 1939 every one of us used to fly aeroplanes. Nobody flies an aeroplane today. No one can afford it unless he is very rich, and anyway nobody has done anything to assist the flying clubs.
I hope shortly to become a member of a hover club. Unlike my right hon. Friend the Leader of our party, I propose not to be a great sailing man. I hope to be, instead, a great hover man, and to enjoy membership of the hover club. I think that this craft has an axciting future. It will not only go over the sea, but over lakes and also over land. I remember a long argument about whether Lydd would have been a better place to establish the hovercraft than Pegwell. The argument was that it would cost less situated at Lydd than Ramsgate because it would travel over land for two or three miles before going out to sea.
I want to ensure that whatever we provide in the regulations which will follow the passing of the Bill into law we do nothing to inhibit the operations of those who in a small way will run small hovercraft. I want to ensure that this new instrument is brought to the notice of a


now world of people who can great discovery. I want the this country to participate in be a great new adventure.
It is obvious that the Bill was drawn up in a great hurry. I say "obvious" because it is about as wide an enabling Bill as one could get, and I should like the Minister to say something about that. I do not pretend to be at all definite about it, but I think that under Clause 1(4) it could be said that Dover should be taken out on the ground that it was being run by Britain Railways and should be exempted from the Order, whereas Ramsgate or Pegwell might have to comply with other totally different commercial arrangements. I am not saying that there is anything of that nature which would be hostile to private enterprice interests, but I should like to know whether it will be possible to use the power for different purposes for different types of hovercraft, even if the craft are of the same size, dimensions and particulars. I cannot believe that that is what is intended, but that ought to be investigated.
If it is intended to say that there will be different regulations for safety and registration according to the size, dimension, volume, and so on, analogous to the regulations under the Factories Acts, I accept that that is proper, but if it is intended to say that certain classes of hovercraft should be exempt from control we must be careful. On the other hand, if it is drawn so wide simply with a view to being narrowed later, because the draftsmen did not know what else to do, I accept that, and it can be considered in Committee.
Hovercraft can have a profound influence on the future of tourism here and overseas, upon the type of tourism in this country and where we export it. It has not been recognised that we shall be able to send to France daily, about every half an hour, hovercraft moving people to and fro and also profoundly affecting freight, particularly light freight, which is difficult to move to and from this country at the desired speed.
I found this fascinating, because only last Saturday, by pure chance, I was talking to the managing director of Swedish. Hover Lloyd, Mr. Colquhoun, when some

industrialists appeared who manufacture in my constituency. Within only a few minutes they became thrilled at the prospect of being able to send freight by hovercraft at highly competitive rates. We in Britain have not yet realised the enormous advantages of hovercraft for passengers and freight as well as for opening up European countries to our tourism.
We obviously need to move rapidly not only to France but to Holland, Belgium, Denmark and the other low countries and this kind of export will bring intercommunication. All these things foreshadow a great future for this industry. The Ministry and all of us must be humble and must listen carefully to the advice of the very few people who have the true know-how, and must be willing to use this Bill for two or three years as a forerunner. But in sanctioning it in its outcome, we should recognise that, in a few years, we may have to review its effects, and I hope that any Minister will do so.
I must end on my only note of criticism. For the second time this week, the President of the Board of Trade has not attended a debate which it was absolutely essential for him to attend. He was not here for our debate on tourism and seemed to have no interest in it, and he has left the same Minister here this time. This is not just a matter for the Ministry of Technology but presages a great future for trade and industry and I hope that there will not be a third time when he is absent from a debate at which matters are discussed which are very important and which he should hear.
I know that he has put up in his place a charming and very careful listener in the Minister of State, but I hope that these words, which we expressed last Monday as well, will bear some fruit and this new President of the Board of Trade will recognise our feeling that this is an important subject, one to which the most careful attention should be given, because of the bright future which it offers for our country.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. David Price: Although this has not been a long debate, it has been an interesting and worth while one. Like my hon. Friends the Members for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt) and for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) I,


too, live on the Solent. At one stage I thought that the debate would become a Solent affair, but the intervention of my hon. Friends the Members for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) and for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) prevented that from happening.
To those who live on the Solent, hover-craft are part of our everyday life. For many hon. Members, however—particularly for those who are not present, which is the majority of the House—they still remain a matter of curiosity. The main development of hovercraft has taken place in our part of England and we have, therefore, taken a particular interest in their success. Compared with the original inspiration of Christopher Cockerell and the work of Hovercraft Development Limited, a subsidiary of the N.R.D.C., Vickers, Westland and now firms like Vosper and Hovermarine, the Bill may seem small beer, but it is, in its own way, important, as the debate has shown.
The present uncertainties about the legal status of hovercraft could hinder their future development and, more particularly, their commercial prospects. Equally, in the absence of defining a legal régime for them, if an unfortunate accident were to occur I imagine that the professional colleagues of my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet would make a real meal of it. This is the habit of lawyers, and rightly so when Parliament has not been sufficiently "on the ball" in producing relevant legislation or if it has produced untidy legislation. The Bill is, therefore, timely.
In approaching the Bill, both the Government, in drafting it, and the House, in deciding whether to give it a Second Reading, are faced with a dilemma over the treatment of hovercraft. On the one hand, there is a certain urgency to determine an appropriate legal régime for hovercraft—we have all the arguments of whether they should be treated as ships, aircraft or land vehicles—and one cannot help reflecting that, in the argument about whether they are fish, fowl or beast, it may be that they should be treated as duckbilled platypuses; in other words, we must consider whether they should come under the law of the sea or the air or whether a new law should be devised for hovercraft. Hovercraft are now operating commercially, so

that there is urgency for the House to determine exactly how they should be treated legally.
On the other hand, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, the present state of the art is developing rapidly. New applications of the air cushion principle are increasingly being identified and tested. Thus, from the technical point of view, there are strong arguments for leaving the issue open for as long as we can so that future development into new spheres is not excessively restricted by detailed regulations which may be appropriate in one connection but inappropriate in another. This point was clearly expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet.
Let us consider the current applications. We have been talking a lot about the marine applications, but even there they vary. On the Solent we have hovercraft operating as ferries. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet said that this summer they will operate across the Channel. The conditions there, although both at sea, are different. We know from design studies done by Hovercraft Development Ltd., now British Hovercraft Ltd., that oceangoing ships using the air cushion principle are within prospect.
We see the different types of marine hovercraft. There are the characteristics of the skirted hovercraft of the S.R.N. family as against those of the sidewall type which were originally developed by Denny's. That firm then unfortunately went into liquidation, but the development has been brought forward again by Hovermarine and I believe that Vospers is showing an interest in it as well. A regulation which would apply to the skirted hovercraft may well be inapplicable to the sidewall hovercraft.
We know of the use they have been put to in defence, not only by our Defence Department but in the United States of America. The Minister of State had some experience of this in the Navy Department. It may be that some of the restrictions which are right to impose on hovercraft operating in the closed waters of a river estuary would be in no way applicable to use of the similar principle as an assault craft for use by marine commandos.
There has been very little mention in this debate of the tracked hovertrain, but the N.R.D.C. is now going ahead with pilot experiments and tests in East Anglia where it will construct a few miles of track to see whether the hovertrain principle will be an economic and realisable project. It is quite clear that in that case neither the law of the sea nor the law of the air is in any way applicable.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) mentioned the rather more ambitious amphibious use of a craft which would spend 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. of its time travelling over land as opposed to the craft plying to the Isle of Wight which spends probably only 5 per cent. of its time over land. This may create different problems.
Another use which has been hardly touched on and which has considerable prospects is that of the hoverpallet, the use of the air cushion principle for lifting heavy loads. We would probably have to think of bringing that within the general ambit of the Factories Acts, with appropriate amendments. Then we have the large tracked overland hoverfreighters operating over cushions, or more likely, where they are wheeled or tracked vehicles, using air cushions for extra power, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wan-stead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) suggested, for dealing with the problem of taking heavy loads across bridges.
Another matter which has not been mentioned is the air cushion bed. Those of us who have seen this in use realise what a major development it is for dealing with severe burn cases. There has also been some experience of it when paraplegics are suffering seriously from bed sores. No one would suggest that we should apply any of the regulations we have discussed as appropriate for the air cushion principle in hospitals, yet this is an exciting application of the principle. One of my hon. Friends spoke of the possibility of using hovercraft for crop spraying. That was getting a little more into the environment of the law of the air.
Can we, or ought we, to attempt to have common basic rules for the conduct, safety and legal status of all applications of the air cushion principle, or should they be treated case by case? The

Bill recognises that the hovercraft is a vehicle of a new kind but in the illustrations of present development which I have given I go a great deal further and suggest that what is new here is the air cushion principle. This is the centre of the new development. It is a new method of propulsion. Its potential application goes wider even than the hovercraft as we understand it today, and I have given some examples.
I compare the air cushion principle with the principle of the internal combustion engine. We all know that the internal combustion engine was originally used as a motive power for locomotion. We also know that the internal combustion engine can be used as a motor to drive an electric generator. This is a very common use of it. Nobody would suggest that the rule of the road which applies to an internal combustion engine in the form of a motorcar or a lorry should equally apply to the use of an internal combustion engine as an electrical generator.
I suggest from that example, with which Government Departments and the law are now familiar, that we apply the same approach to the air cushion principle. If in deciding how to frame all this the Minister of State and his Department think, not in terms of hovercraft, but in terms of the air cushion principle, I think that they may find it a little easier to distinguish between the various applications. I prefer to approach the problem by securing a legal status for what we have been calling hovercraft case by case. I am sure that this is what my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet was arguing. Thus the legal status would be defined according to the particular use, or let us say, the primary use to which the air cushion principle is applied in each case and, what is equally important, according to the environment in which it operates.
Take the case of the S.R.N.6s operating in the Solent. One does not need to get into the higher metaphysical points of whether they are ships or something different. The plain fact of life is that they are operating in a marine environment and, if things were to go wrong, what they would collide with would be ships. It might be my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) leading the House of Commons Yacht


Squadron. It could be an oil tanker. What I can assure the House they will not bump into is a Boeing 707. Therefore, I cannot help feeling that the Air Registration Board in that case is not entirely the most appropriate body to consider registration and certification.
Most of the hovercraft currently in use would seem to fall into the maritime classification. Thus it would appear to me that it is the law of the sea that is applicable and not the law of the air, but it does not follow from that fact that all applications of the air cushion principle should be made subject to the law of the sea. On the contrary, as my hon. Friends and I have argued, it would be ridiculous to apply the law of the sea to a tracked hovercraft or to a hover-pallet. Doubtless, modifications will have to be made to the existing legal régimes to accommodate the peculiarities of a hovercraft or the air cushion principle, but I do not believe this is beyond the wit of the law makers. If this is not done, the development of hovercraft could be effectively frustrated by the imposition of anachronistic regulations.
I want to encourage the Minister of State to be bold. I realise the difficulties a Government Department faces in these matters, because we all know the important part that precedent plays in the life of any Government. When in doubt, go back to precedent. The rate of technical change today is such that adherence when in doubt to precedents, instead of being an illumination of the problem, can darken it. I have sympathy with the current generation of civil servants, because the pace of change is far faster than their predecessors ever had to experience. The case of the hovercraft illustrates my point very well. In Committee we shall want to go into some detail on this.
As I interpret the Bill, it is the Government's object to try to avoid these hazards, and I believe that this is what Clause 1(1,k) endeavours to do particularly. The Minister's opening speech fortified me in this view.
The Bill takes power to deal with the major matters affecting the legal status of hovercraft—registration, fitness for use, safety, crew qualification—of which no mention has been made—the investigation of accidents, and the regulation of

noise and vibration. As some of my hon. Friends have been quick to point out, it is only an enabling Bill and everything depends on how the powers in it are implemented in the subsequent orders. We on this side of the House are in this case prepared to support the wide enabling powers, because of the varying nature of hovercraft and because we do not wish to frustrate their development by demanding precision at this stage of their development.
Nevertheless, we would like an undertaking tonight from the Minister that when we get the first order or orders under the Bill we shall be given them at a reasonable hour and will have a reasonable amount of time to debate them. If they come very late in the evening one is up against Standing Orders and so on. It will be evidence of the good faith which the hon. Gentleman has engendered in this debate if they are brought on at a reasonable hour and we have a chance to discuss them. The difficulty of this procedure is that such orders are unamendable. Hon. Members on both sides of the House could be put in the difficult position of agreeing with the purpose of an order but genuinely feeling that certain items in it could be dealt with differently. They would find themselves constrained either to support something which was not quite right or to vote against it, which they probably would not be minded to do on any Second Reading grounds. Therefore, I very much hope that the Minister and his Department will discuss any proposed draft with all the interested parties before presenting it to Parliament, so that in a way there is administratively a Committee stage, which we cannot have on the Floor of the House because it will be an order and not a Bill.
I was also pleased to read in Clause 1(3):
An Order under this section may—
(a) make different provision for different circumstances or for hovercraft of different descriptions;
This seems to me an absolutely essential feature of what I understand to be the Government's approach and the approach which I and my hon. Friends have been putting before the House tonight.
Both my hon. and learned Friends the Members for the Isle of Thanet and Twickenham raised the question of the


hover clubs and the amateurs. I hope that the Minister will refer to them in winding up, and that he and his Department will give consideration to that point before the Committee stage.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham raised the interesting problem of the "rule of the road" at sea. I might add that there is also the whole question of navigation lights, because I have seen a hovercraft coming into port winking away as if it were a large jet airliner landing at Heathrow, which I did not think is entirely appropriate when it was coming in amongst ordinary yachts and dinghies.
My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight raised the very important question of definition and certification, which is obviously a matter we shall have to go into in Standing Committee. He and some of my other hon. Friends said that it would be desirable if we could define hovercraft, at least in their marine application, in the same manner as other countries, and he pointed out that they certified them in the same manner as they certified ships. This is a very strong point in favour of Lloyds Register rather than the Air Registration Board dealing with them in their marine application.
I shall not bore the House with the details of how various countries handle that, but shall just mention that Japan, the United States of America, France, Italy, Sweden and Norway all treat them under the same general discipline and régime as they treat ships. Therefore, it would seem not unreasonable that we should follow similar practice.
In dealing with technical definitions, I shall not compete with my hon. Friends in putting up alternatives to the hon. Gentleman but I leave the hon. Gentleman one idea to mull over with his officials. This is whether we should not try to define hovercraft in terms of the air cushion principle expressed mathematically rather than in words. In my period of office at the Board of Trade, I never succeeded in persuading the Parliamentary draftsmen to define things mathematically. I wanted to do it in connection with the definition of monopoly. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman may feel on this occasion that there could be a mathematical definition and I am

sure that the N.P.L. might be able to assist. He might find it more helpful in this than the lawyers.
I hope that he will take seriously the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford on the question of certification of maritime hovercraft. I need not go over the points again. We can go into the details in Committee.
I wish the British hovercraft industry every good fortune in its exciting adventure. Commercially, it is just beginning to get airborne. It has a long way to go before it begins to get any return for its initiative and enterprise in the form of realised profits, and I trust that the orders under the Bill will enhance and not hinder its commercial prospects, because its resulting success will be to the benefit not only of the companies concerned but of the nation as a whole.

9.22 p.m.

Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu: Perhaps I may reply by leave of the House. In using that phrase, I must refer to the comments about the absence of my right hon. Friend. No one regrets his absence more than I do. It is not through lack of interest either in tourism or in the development of this great new industry that he is absent. He has been completely absorbed during the past week in the negotiations with E.F.T.A., and, indeed, is still absorbed in the aftermath. He would very much like to have been here to take part in the debate.
The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) asked me for some assurances about the Orders. He asked that, when presented to the House, they should be discussed at a reasonable time. I cannot give that assurance. I am not the Leader of the House nor the Patronage Secretary. But, for what it is worth, I give the assurance that I shall do everything possible to see that we so arrange our business that these Orders, many of which will be immensely important, are discussed properly and at a reasonable time. I shall certainly put this point to my right hon. Friends.
The hon. Gentleman also asked for an assurance that we should have a sort of administrative Committee stage in dealing with the Orders—that we should consult all the interests concerned,


especially the operators and manufacturers. I give that assurance absolutely. The hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) suggested that all of us should be humble in this matter, that we have a small body of experts and should listen to their advice. We are doing and will continue to do that, and I give that absolute assurance, too.
I am prepared to give another assurance, namely that when we have had these discussions with the industry and have the Orders in draft, but before we bring them to the House, we should enter into inter-party discussions, which I would very much welcome. It is perfectly obvious from the tone of every speech made that we take a tremendous pride in the industry and are concerned to serve it with the best possible legislation.

Mr. David Price: May I say from this side of the House that we very much welcome that offer.

Mr. Mallalieu: The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) said that he could not wait to hear what was the connection between hovercraft and the Docking and Nicking of Horses Act, 1948. Hovercraft, being neither ship nor aircraft, are left out of the provision of various Statutes. This particular Statute has to do with the transport of horses by sea, among other things. At present there is no regulation governing the transport of horses by hovercraft. Under Clause 3 and the Schedule we are making sure that, where it is necessary, this can be done in accordance with statutory regulations.
There are other loopholes in the law. It is not absolutely clear that we have any power to deal with the transport, by hovercraft, of drugs, illegal immigrants or high explosives. Again this is the purpose of Clauses 3 and the Schedule. One point raised by the hon. Member for Eastleigh was new to me. He spoke of the air cushion bed. I have not heard of that before, and I too have a personal interest in this. Quite clearly we will not restrict in any way the use of this in hospitals.
Clearly there are all manners of different types of hovercraft and different uses of the hover cushion principle. We propose to take powers to treat different types in different ways. It is different

types and not different persons or places, that is to say we shall make regulations for the use of a particular type of hovercraft and it will not matter at all who uses that type. Exactly the same regulations will be in force.
My hon. Friend the Member for Horn-church (Mr. Alan Lee Williams) surprised me, because I had not thought about the ancient right of the Watermen of the River Thames being affected by this Bill, and I shall guard those rights with my life. Reverting to the different types and different treatment, I come to what the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham said about different environments. Take, for example, the rule of the road. It is bound to be a commonsense judgment. If the craft is operated in a marine environment, then it is governed by the rule of the road of the sea. If it is operating on a road, which it is not allowed to do at the moment, it would be governed by that rule of the road. If it is operating on sand, which is neither road nor sea, it is the devil takes the hindmost, as far as I can see. Different regulations would be needed depending on the environment.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) expressed surprise at the flashing amber light which suggested that the hovercraft was about to run into a Boeing 707. This is probably a good thing which should be retained in view of the peculiar operating characteristics of a hovercraft, particularly at speed, and its propensity to move sideways to its line of flight. I hope the Minister of State will give an indication that the flashing amber light will be retained.

Mr. Mallalieu: I had noted that point. I have noticed hovercraft showing red and green lights, but they were coming broadside on, so I did not know which was which. It is a considerable point.
We have had a fair amount of discussion on the definition, and a very detailed alternative definition was suggested by the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt). I could not take it in as it was read, but I shall have a look at it. I shall, also have a look at the idea of a mathematical definition, but, since I have unhappily failed to pass school certificate even in maths, I do not know what it means.
Some fears about the definition that have been expressed this evening are perhaps unfounded. For example, one fear was that the definition would not cover hovercraft when they are coming into port and are in the trapped air condition. The definition says that a hovercraft is a vehicle which is "designed to be" mainly supported by air expelled. Therefore, even if it were coming into port and not expelling air, it would be covered by the definition because it is designed to be supported when in motion by air expelled.
We have also had considerable debate on the definition that was suggested by Lloyds using the 75 per cent. test. We wanted something wider than that so that we could make regulations for air cushion vehicles which are dependent only as to something less than 75 per cent.—perhaps 40 per cent. or 20 per cent.—on the air cushion.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) and the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight made reference to the Hover Club and to the amateurs who are now taking to the construction of hovercraft. The Bill proposes to take some powers to regulate the "kitchen garden" hovercraft. There are clear reasons why we should. Some of them are made at home and transported by road to rallies. In the past, they have not always been well designed. I have lived in fear that a propeller might fly off one and hurt someone present at a rally. I believe that some provision is needed to regulate the construction of these craft.
In our regulations, I should like to see these small craft dealt with in much the same way as we deal with small yachts, so that they are left very much on their own and not made subject to the restrictions and regulations applied to larger craft. Certainly I will do everything that I can to encourage hovercraft clubs and, helped by the Air Registration Board in this instance, will give advice to anyone who asks about the essentials for safety when constructing these small craft. In no circumstances do I want to put them in a straitjacket or discourage the very exciting zeal shown by a great many people in building hovercraft. Apart from being great fun, I am sure that their activities will help the industry considerably.
I feel that the interest of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) is somewhat divided between hovercraft and hydrofoils. However, we need not go into that tonight as hydrofoils are not covered by the Bill. He asked whether we intended to cover agricultural vehicles of all types. We are taking powers to do so. I do not know that it will be essential to have regulations for hover mowers, but it will be necessary to take precautionary regulations for hover crop sprayers.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will the Minister bear in mind that agricultural vehicles on the hover principle may have to go on roads from time to time when they cross from one farm to another?

Mr. Mallalieu: If they were permitted to go on roads, they would be covered by the provisions of the Road Traffic Act. It would be wiser at present to transport them on trailers between farms rather than going under their own steam or, rather, over their own air. There might be considerable dangers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) raised a number of points which are of importance to the industry. He asked whether the lack of legislation was interfering with export sales. There is no evidence of that, though it could well be so in the future. One of the reasons for getting ahead with legislation is so that prospective buyers abroad may have some idea of how they stand.
There have been considerable sales, and the possibilities are enormous. Here, I return in spirit to my old Department and pay tribute to the Services for the way in which they have spread the story of hovercraft throughout the world. The Inter-Services Hovercraft Trials Unit was first of all out in Borneo, where the hovercraft was a remarkable success operationally. Then, on the way home, it went across the rice fields in Thailand, where it was such a success that the Thais immediately bought one, but unfortunately from Japan. Then came the experiments carried out in the Middle East. They were not successful at first because the sand clogged the machine. However, the designers have got round that difficulty now, and we hear of Iran placing orders and that the possibilities there are considerable.
There were trials in Latin America. In Canada there were tremendous trials. They went further north than any moving vehicle had been, dealing with the ice at its most awkward stage, when it was breaking up. It is all right when it is solid or lot there, but when it is breaking up it is very dangerous. They made a tremendous impression upon the Canadians. I would say to my hon. Friends, as I say to the House and as I say repeatedly when I go abroad, that these machines have a wonderful future.
I have tried to cover some of the points that have been raised this evening in this most pleasant and useful preliminary debate. But I have been made extremely conscious, if I was not so already, of the amount of thought and work that will have to go into the Committee stage. I am so much alarmed about some of the legal implications of the Committee stage that I have half a mind to ask if I can be accompanied by one of the Law Officers of the Crown. It is obviously going to be hard work for all of us. It has become very apparent from the discussion we have had tonight that those who are members of that Committee and take part in its proceedings will be concerned with one objective only—to make as good a Bill as possible for an industry of which we are rightly proud.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

HOVERCRAFT [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified,—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to hovercraft, it is expedient to authorise—

(1) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred under that Act by any Minister of the Crown or government department (other than the Postmaster General) and of any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of such moneys under any other enactment;
(2) the payment out of or into the Consolidated Fund or the National Loans Fund

of any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of or into that Fund under any other enactment; and
(3) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any sums reecived under that Act by such a Minister or department as aforesaid.—[Mr. John Silkin.]

WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANISATION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES)

9.43 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. William Rodgers): I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order, 1968 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 2nd May.
Since the 1880s the United Kingdom has been a member of both the Paris Union for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. These are two most important world-wide international bodies regulating respectively patents and copyright. Each Union has possessed an international secretariat appointed by and working under the supervision of the Swiss Government. In 1893 the secretariats were amalgamated to form the United International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property, which is commonly—and fortunately—known under the less cumbersome formula of B.I.R.P.I. There was, however, no formal machinery for the member countries of the two Unions to direct the secretariats' activities. Nor was there any co-ordination between the Unions in such matters as finance.
In October 1962, however, it was decided to aim at a new organisation which would more effectively co-ordinate the activities of the Paris and Berne Unions, thus creating an effective forum for discussing matters of common concern which would be open to all countries whether or not they were party to the Paris or Berne Conventions.
A conference was held at Stockholm last summer which drew up the necessary convention to set up a World Intellectual Property Organisation. The Organisation will have as its primary objective the protection of intellectual property—which means particularly rights relating


to copyright, patents, trade marks, industrial designs—throughout the world. The United Kingdom participated in the conference at Stockholm last summer and welcomes this development. There is everything to be said for creating a new organisation which will be the specialist body in a most important field, and one to which all countries can belong even though they may not yet be ready to accept particular Conventions. For example problems of patents and copyright of mutual interest to the developed and the developing countries can be discussed, and programmes of legal and technical assistance can be drawn up. We have joined with 50 other countries in signing the Convention and look forward to the establishment of the new Organisation in Geneva as soon as possible.
However, the Organisation cannot be legally established until seven members of the Paris Union and ten members of the Berne Union have ratified the Convention. In turn, the United Kingdom itself cannot ratify until our own legislative processes have been completed. This draft Order in Council is required to give effect to Article 12 of the Convention. Assuming that it is approved by each House, an Order in these terms will then be made by the Queen in Council. It will come into effect at the same moment as the new Organisation comes into existence as a result of a sufficient number of ratifications of the Convention being deposited.
This may sound complicated, but it is an example of a normal legislative process with which, I am sure, the House is familiar. May I make clear that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Stockholm Protocol to the Berne Convention, which deals with developing countries. This was a subject of some controversy last July, but it is quite unrelated to this draft Order in Council.
May I also make clear, in case the title of this draft Order should mislead the House, that its scope is limited to conferring on the World Intellectual Property Organisation the legal capacities of a body corporate. It confers nothing else in the way of immunities and privileges on that Organisation, and it is not in any case envisaged that any such immunities or privileges will be required

in the United Kingdom. Wider immunities and privileges will, however, be required by the Organisation in Switzerland, which will be the host State. I know the House is sensitive on the broad issue of immunities and privileges. That is why I am anxious to give the assurance that it need not concern itself on this point in regard to the present Order.
I hope that the Order will now receive the approval of the House.

9.47 p.m.

Viscount Lambton: This Order is part of a plan to create a world-wide agreement on copyrights and patents. I am sure that the House will regard that as a desirable end, but one cannot help wondering how effective it will be. The Minister told us that 50 countries have so far signed the Convention. What about the countries which do not sign? Is the U.S.S.R. to be a party to the agreement? In that country, I have always understood, there is the very worst violation of international copyright. If the agreement is not to be worldwide, how effective will the Organisation be?
There are, I understand, three types of corporation under English law. First, there is the body incorporated under Royal Charter. Second, there is the corporation created under special statute. Third, there are companies registered under the Companies Act. Presumably, the Organisation with which we are here concerned comes under the second head, being created by Order under the 1950 Act. In the circumstances, I think it fair to ask whether a new and originally created corporation of this kind should be brought into existence merely by Statutory Order.
However, we on this side have no wish to oppose the Order, although we are inclined to wonder whether the Organisation will be effective in practice in bringing some sort of order into this very disordered field.

9.50 p.m.

Mr. William Rodgers: May I have leave to speak again?
I greatly welcome the help which we have received from the Opposition.
We do not know how effective this new organisation will be. As I mentioned in


moving the Order, 50 countries have already signed it. I hope that other countries which have not signed it, and which I agree have hitherto sometimes not conformed to the standards which we have every right to expect, will see the advantage of an international agreement of this kind, which will be a defence for them as well as for us. I certainly share the view that this should become more effective by gaining strength and further ratifications as time goes by. A new organisation of this kind, encompassing aspects of both previous Conventions, is more likely to attract outsiders than the organisational framework which it replaces.
The hon. Gentleman will wish to know that the Soviet Union was represented at Stockholm and signed the Convention which establishes the new organisation.

But I concede that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and we must see what progress can be made.
On the second point, I understand the hon. Gentleman's anxiety, but I think that the fact this is an Affirmative Order and that we are debating it tonight shows that we recognise the importance of the matter and that it was proper to discuss it in this way.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1968 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 2nd May.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS

9.52 p.m.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to move,
That the matter of questions to Ministers with particular reference to the adequacy of the time allotted for answers to oral questions, the maximum and minimum periods of notice for the tabling of questions for oral and for written reply and the rules and practice of the House restricting the submission of such questions, be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure.
I should like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman the Patronage Secretary for providing a certain amount of time for discussion of the Motion standing in the names of myself and a number of my hon. Friends. I know that for a Patronage Secretary to provide Government time is almost as much of a wrench as it is for a Treasury Minister to allow a tax concession. Having had some experience of the latter, I appreciate the former all the more.
I am grateful for the opportunity of raising the question whether further consideration of the matter of Parliamentary Questions should be undertaken on our behalf by the Procedure Committee. The House will recall that a Procedure Committee was set up recently this Session and instructed, first, to give consideration to the interesting question whether we divide the Parliamentary year in relation to our sittings in the best possible manner. Nothing in the Motion is intended to interfere with the Procedure Committee giving first consideration to this matter, but it seeks to ask it, when it has done that, to give consideration to the matter of Parliamentary Questions.
I shall confine my observations to the matter of Questions for Oral Answer. This is not to suggest that Written Questions are not important. They are. However, in my view, the most acute difficulties have recently arisen in respect of Oral Questions.
The number of Oral Questions has risen very much in recent years. That is not a matter for surprise. After all, the number of Ministers has increased. This increase has not merely represented a more detailed division of Ministerial responsibility; it has reflected the fact

that the scope of Government has widened during recent years and that Governments now, for better or worse, intervene and act over a wider sphere of the activities of the nation than they ever did.
It is natural, therefore, that hon. Members should desire to question Ministers more, and in greater numbers, now in view of the fact that Ministers are themselves greater in number and exercise wider responsibilities. The fact is, however, that although the number of Ministers has risen substantially since 1945, when I first came into the House, the amount of time allotted to Oral Questions is precisely the same today as it was in 1945. There is, therefore, this situation: more Ministers, a wider scope of Ministerial activity, a consequential increase in the number of Parliamentary Questions, but no more time allotted for the answering of Questions than was the case in quite different circumstances in 1945.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the problem of dealing adequately with Oral Questions has become more and more intractable. There has been one particularly noticeable consequence. Mr. Speaker has been faced with a very real problem in conducting our affairs in respect of Parliamentary Questions. He has been faced with this dilemma: either an increasing number of Questions put down for Oral Answer will not get an Oral Answer, even on the day when the Minister concerned is at the top of the list, or he must restrict the opportunities for supplementary questions. So long as the time allotted remains constant and the number of Questions rises, there is no way out of that dilemma. I am not making any criticism of Mr. Speaker. Not only should I be out of order if I did so, but I do not want to because I do not think that any criticism would be justified.
Mr. Speaker in his wisdom has found it necessary, so that even a substantial proportion of Oral Questions shall get an Oral Answer when the Minister concerned is first on the list, to restrict to a far greater extent than was the case when I first came into the House the number of supplementary questions. I believe that that has had the result of greatly weakening the effect and value of the Parliamentary Question. It is


now the practice—and under the present provisions I make no complaint of it—that a second supplementary question is hardly ever granted to a back bencher. It is, of course, in accordance with longstanding practice allowed to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench, but not to back benchers. That single fact has greatly diminished the effectiveness of the Parliamentary Question.
I have a little experience of this. I answered Parliamentary Questions for 13 years in all, and I have asked a certain number since then, and indeed before then. I have formed the view that no Minister has the slightest difficulty in answering one supplementary question. He can brush it aside with a pleasantry, or with a personality about the Member who has put it, or with an irrelevance. It is the second supplementary question which, properly directed, can nail him, and it is precisely that second supplementary question which has been the victim of the change to which I have been referring of the increased number of Oral Questions and, therefore, of the steps which Mr. Speaker has found it necessary to take to deal with a sufficient number of them.
There is no doubt that as a result largely, but perhaps not wholly, of that the Parliamentary Question is not the weapon in the hands of hon. Members that it was. I do not believe that it causes quite so much alarm and disquiet in the minds of those who advise Ministers as it used to. This is the reason. It may be that those who sit on the other side of the House—for the time being—feel that that does not matter very much, but no one who has been long in the House on either side would like to see the Parliamentary Question become less effective.

It being Ten o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker interrupted the Business.

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on the Motion relating to Procedure Committee may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour during a period of one hour after Ten o'clock though opposed.—[Mr. Ioan L. Evans.]

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the House is with me on this point, it is clear that we have suffered some loss in the effectiveness of the House in the weakening of the effectiveness of the Parlia-

mentary Question. There is only one way of answer to this. It is for the Select Committee to decide on the evidence and then for the House subsequently to review its decision, rather than for me now to suggest with precision what particular remedy should be applied.
However, in case the House is prepared to let this go to the Select Committee, I have one or two tentative suggestions to make, subject, of course, to such views as the Select Committee may form after hearing the evidence. The smallest proposal that one can make is simply that Question hour should become Question hour, in other words, that time for Oral Questions should run for 60 minutes from the start of Question No. 1 and that the hour should not in future be minus the time taken for Prayers, presentation of Petitions and Private Business.
But I doubt whether that be enough. There is a case for saying that there should be an hour and a quarter each day for Questions. Because I have had some experience in office, I know that for the Government to give up a little Parliamentary time is a serious decision. On the other hand, the Patronage Secretary will be more aware than most of us that the general effect of what I will not call the "Crossman reforms", but the changes which one associates with the Lord President, has been to the benefit of the Government of the day from the point of view of Parliamentary time.
It has involved a considerable saving of Parliamentary time for Government business, whether by providing that there shall not be debate on Third Readings unless expressly demanded by six hon. Members, or by limiting guillotine Motions, when one risks getting near controversy, to two hours, or by doing away with the formal stage of consideration of Lords Amendments, or half a dozen other changes. That being so, the changes have, on the whole, been of advantage to the Government, so it would not be unreasonable to ask for some compensating advantage for the House in respect of Questions.
There is no answer to the deterioration in the effectiveness of the Parliamentary Question other than the provision of additional time, but what precise form


that addition should take and how much it should amount to is just the kind of matter which the Select Committee could conveniently consider.
It would also be appropriate for the Committee to deal with one or two other matters. It is not so long since, on the recommendation of a previous Select Committee, we introduced what is conveniently called the "three weeks' rule" for giving notice of Questions. This was intended to deal with the risk that all Questions likely to be answered orally by a certain Minister might be preempted by hon. Members putting down Questions, perhaps months in advance. I am not sure that it has worked satisfactorily. There is always a curious tendency for maxima to become minima, and that has certainly occurred in considerable measure in respect of this rule.
In practice, in the case of at any rate a popular—perhaps I should say "unpopular"—Minister, unless one gets one's Question down 21 days before he is due to answer one has no hope of getting an Oral Answer. It has become essential to get Questions in on the first possible day for an Oral Answer to be obtained.
This has had curious side effects on the working of the Table Office. It has meant that if an hon. Member gets a Question in on the first day—or twenty-first day, whichever way one likes to look at it—but a query is raised by the Table Office about the Question and that query cannot be dealt with before Four o'clock, when the first batch of Questions goes to the printer, the practical effect is that the hon. Member loses his chance of getting an Oral Answer to that Question. As it is inevitable with the volume of Questions that a great many Ouestions will be received on that day, the Table Office may not get round to dealing with one's Question until the afternoon, with the result that there is only a short period during which the query can be dealt with by the hon. Member in time for the Question to go forward to the printer in time for it to be in the first batch.
This is a direct and unexpected result of the acceptance by the House of the recommendation of the previous Procedure Committee of the 21-day rule, and it raises another question which the 1966–67 Procedure Committee con-

sidered. It is the order in which Questions, having been received at the Table Office, should be printed on the Order Paper. As I understand the practice, Questions which are dealt with in time on the first day to catch the Four o'clock pouch to the printer all go to the printer together; and it then lies in the hands of either Providence or the printer as to the order in which they appear. This point was raised with considerable effect by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) the other day.
For most Ministers perhaps that does not matter very much, because most of the first batch will get an Oral Answer. But in respect of Questions to the Prime Minister it matters a great deal, because there are always a number of Questions to him and it is probable that only the first six or seven will get answered. If there are 10 or 12 put in on the first day, as there sometimes are, the position as to which hon. Member gets an Oral Answer from the Prime Minister depends on the printer. I am not suggesting that anything but pure chance operates, but I am suggesting that perhaps this is not the best possible system.
The Procedure Committee considered in general, but not in the particular context of the Prime Minister's Questions, the putting of a time or date stamp on Questions as they are received. It rejected that at the time, but it is significant that that Committee stated in paragraph 5, having referred to the situation of the overcrowding, as it called it, of the Order Paper:
If, as your Committee anticipate, the situation does persist, it will be necessary for them to return to the subject in a further Report.
There is no doubt that the question has persisted and I think that both the question of the 21-day rule itself and of its unexpected side effects—the lottery of the printer and the fact of the difficulty of clearing a Question on which the Table Office has queries by the Four o'clock date-line for the first batch—could profitably now be considered by the present Procedure Committee. I particularly call in aid the fact that its predecessor both foresaw that the situation would persist and indicated its view at the time that if that situation eventuated, the matter should be looked at.
I think, too, the Procedure Committee could profitably look at some of the rules


which restrict the submission of Questions by hon. Members. It is no doubt inevitable in a complicated set-up such as ours that the rules governing the admissibility of Parliamentary Questions should become sophisticated and elaborate. Sometimes one wonders whether they have become over-sophisticated for Members and too elaborate for many of us, but I am sure that it is right that they should be looked at impartially from time to time.
I do not pretend in the time available to refer to all of them. I will refer to only three which seem particularly suitable to be looked at. First, there is the rule that we cannot submit a Question for the Order Paper to a Minister suggesting a change in the law if that change in the law could be effected by an Amendment to a Bill at present before the House. That rule takes no account at all of the practical possibilities. It might be quite easy for the alternative method to be adopted by an hon. Member on a Standing Committee dealing with that particular Bill, but not by an hon. Member who has not that advantage. That hon. Member has the chance only on Report stage, and his chance depends solely, Sir, on your decision on the selection of Amendments.
This also requires looking at because of the peculiarly paradoxical modification of the rule adopted some years ago. Under this the rule placed the bar on Questions which could be the subject-matter of an Amendment to a Bill which was in order, but so long as the Question related to a suggestion to amend the Bill which would not be in order the Question would be in order. That is the curious paradox we have got ourselves into. It is one of the matters which could be profitably examined and on which evidence could be further given to the Select Committee.
Then there is the curious rule that a Question which asks for legislation on the basis of one particular case is out of order in general but is in order if that one particular case reflects a particular decision of the courts. I find that distinction a little difficult to sustain.
There is, finally, the question as to whether we should sustain the rule that the Minister's refusal to answer Questions on matters within his responsibility or to answer a class of Questions within his

responsibility should bar the appearance of such Questions on the Order Paper. I can understand the argument that it would be a waste of the time of the House and rather boring for Questions to appear week after week which a Minister says he will not answer.
On the other hand, I wonder if the balance has not gone a little too far when a Minister by one Answer in a Session saying "I will not answer Questions relating to this" is able to bar a Question on the Order Paper. This seems peculiarly advantageous to the Minister. It is at least possible that issues may arise in which hon. Members on both sides of the House think the Minister should answer.
It may well be the case that if Questions of that sort can be tabled sooner or later the Minister can be induced to see the light of day. As it is, under the present rule—if I understand aright, and I think I do—one Answer saying, "I will not answer Questions on this particular subject-matter" bars any Question within that definition for the rest of that Session. I think that is a rule worth inquiring into.
I am sure that other hon. Members believe that other aspects of this matter should be inquired into. I hope and believe that most of them will agree with me that these are singularly difficult matters for the House to decide without the assistance of the advice of a Select Committee. Equally, hon. Members will take the view that the procedure of a Select Committee—the hearing of evidence; the submission of papers by the Clerks at the Table—enables a considered judgment to be obtained.
Therefore, my sole plea tonight is not for the House to accept any of my tentatively offered remedies. They may well be wrong. They may well be shot to pieces when they are examined before the Select Committee. All I am seeking to suggest is that there is here a matter for inquiry. I am drawing on my own experience—I think that it is that of many hon. Members—that today the Parliamentary Question is less effective than it was and less effective than for the good health of the House it should be. I believe that the Select Committee, either on the lines I have suggested, or perhaps on totally different lines, could find ways of improving it.


Therefore, my plea tonight is that we should ask the Select Committee to do just that.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House will know that Mr. Speaker is particularly interested in this debate.

10.17 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I followed with great interest, as a member of the last Select Committee on Procedure and as a member of the reconstituted Select Committee on Procedure, the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his summing up of some of the problems which have faced the Select Committee, for many of his observations, and for many of his suggestions. I shall not say too much tonight, because I presume that as a result of this debate initiated by my right hon. Friend the matter will come before the Select Committee, which no doubt in its wisdom will decide to discuss the issues which have been raised and make recommendations.
The Select Committee on Procedure is an all-party Committee presided over by a distinguished member of the Government. The Committee goes to a good deal of trouble and takes a good deal of time in discharging its functions. It is composed of a considerable number of hon. Members who have heavy engagements to fulfil and who are well acquainted with the responsibility that the House places on the Committee. I am very proud to have been asked to serve on the Committee. The Committee pays a great deal of attention to the needs of the House and to the fact that it is important, for the proper preservation of Parliamentary democracy, that our procedure should be good, up to date, in tune with modern thought, and give a fair run to all hon. Members.
When the new Select Committee gets down to its business, I hope that the new Leader of the House will pay reasonable attention to the Committee's recommendations and will not behave as his predecessor behaved in regard to the Report of the last Select Committee. My recollection is that the last Leader of the House, the present Lord President of the Council, took from the Select

Committee's Report exactly what suited him.

Mr. Speaker: Order. He may or may not have done, but we are discussing whether a Select Committee should deal with the question of Questions.

Dame Irene Ward: That may be so, Mr. Speaker, but there must be an opportunity for a member of the Select Committee to say that in my opinion—I do not say that it is anybody else's—it is a complete waste of time to have these very important issues sent to the Select Committee for consideration if the Leader of the House is to make his own choice and to throw aside—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I agree with the hon. Lady that there must be an opportunity, but the opportunity is not on the debate whether the Select Committee on Procedure should examine the question of Questions.

Dame Irene Ward: I am all in favour of the Select Committee discussing the point of view expressed by my right hon. Friend, but I happen to be a Member of this House and I think I am right to say—and I say it, if I may, with your permission, Mr. Speaker—that I do not see why I should spend my time discussing matters raised by my right hon. Friend which are of great importance to the House and which are designed to give the maximum support to the right of Members of Parliament with regard to Parliamentary Questions, if, when the Select Committee has examined the point of view expressed by my right hon. Friend, the Leader of the House has no—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady and I would fight to the death for her right to debate whatever she wishes to debate at the appropriate moment.

Dame Irene Ward: Yes, but—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are now deciding whether the Select Committee on Procedure should examine the question of Questions. The hon. Lady knows that.

Dame Irene Ward: That may be all very well, but I am getting a bit tired of always being told that there will be opportunities, opportunities which are denied to the House. Someone must say


that. If I cannot at some time or other find an opportunity of saying what I want to say—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would help the hon. Lady if possible to find an opportunity. This, however, is not the one.

Dame Irene Ward: I am a great believer in promises.
I have said what I have to say. I know well enough about the world to know that the House will know exactly what I intend to say, particularly as my right hon. Friend is also a very distinguished member of the Select Committee on Procedure. But when the occasion does arise, I shall remind you of your promise to me, Mr. Speaker, because we get on very well together, and I hope that I shall then be able to say exactly what I think about the mad, revolutionary, ex-Leader of the House whom I am jolly glad we have got rid of.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Without commitment, I shall also remind the hon. Lady of what I said tonight.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Peter Kirk: Perhaps I might be allowed to support very strongly what my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said, without entering into the somewhat more controversial matter introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward). That is not to say that I disagree with her—I would not dream of doing that or dare to do so.
I want to return strictly to the question of Question Time. The House is deeply obliged to my right hon. Friend for raising it, not only because it is a matter of great importance, but also because it gives us the rare opportunity of hearing from the Patronage Secretary. That is a treat that I would not wish to deny the House, and so I shall be very brief.
There are a number of points which have arisen, even for someone like myself, who does not often table Oral Questions and who, for that reason, treasures those he does table. Fewer and fewer of the Questions I have tabled for Oral Answer get answered

because I usually tend to table them after 4 p.m. on the first day on which they can be tabled. That is a pity. One of the great virtues of Oral Questions is that one can get a quick answer from a Minister on a matter and cross-question him.
One of our reasons for reducing the period of notice from an unlimited time to three weeks was to try to get actuality into Oral Questions, but the effect has been the reverse and the Select Committee should look into the matter, which is of great importance. It is almost impossible to get an answer to an Oral Question on a matter of instantaneous importance unless you, Mr. Speaker, are prepared to allow a Private Notice Question, and rightly, in your wisdom, you allow these rarely because, if you allowed them as often as perhaps they should be allowed, we should get no other business done.
Another factor which curiously enough has had an inhibiting effect on Question Time is the reverse of the one raised by my right hon. Friend. He pointed to the increase in the number of Ministries, but the amalgamations of Ministries have also caused problems. For constituency reasons, I have had to raise a number of Questions in the last two or three years about a specific subject. I shall not mention it now because I have done so so often, but it concerns aviation. But aviation matters are among all the Board of Trade's functions, which cover a very wide scope, and it is almost impossible to tell whether it is going to be possible to get a quick answer on an aviation matter from the Board of Trade at Question Time.
It would be better if the Select Committee could look at the possibility, in the case of what one might call, without offence, the "portmanteau Ministries", of grouping their functions, so that one could be certain that, for example, aviation matters in Board of Trade Questions or Army matters in the Ministry of Defence Questions—these latter, before 1964, would have been answered separately—could all come together on the same day. This would give coherence to Question Time and give a reasonable certainty that one would get an answer if one put down one's Question on a specific day.
Another point is the very vexed issue, raised time and again, of the transfer of Questions. This causes endless trouble to hon. Members. A Question may be a borderline case as between one Ministry and another. One puts it down to a certain Minister for the day on which he is to be top of the list for Questions. Then it is transferred to another Minister who is down on the list for the same day and it ends up at the bottom on the list. Could there not be a system whereby, if a Question was wrongly placed in good faith, it would be transferred to another Minister on a day when he would have a chance to answer it?

Mr. R. H. Turton: The Select Committee investigated this matter and recommended that Ministers should transfer Questions not later than two days after the notice has been put down.

Mr. Kirk: That would help. My right hon. Friend is quite right. I have a feeling that it would be even better to make it automatic that the Question should go to the other Minister on the next day he was due to answer Questions at the top of the list. It would then be fairly certain of getting an answer. Nothing causes more bad feeling than when a Question is suddenly transferred to another Minister and therefore comes at the bottom of the list.
There is also the question of Ministers who answer on Tuesdays and Thursdays because, on those days, the Prime Minister's Questions are really sui generis. On those days, one does not have a Question hour minus, as my right hon. Friend put it, but three quarters of an hour minus. Some very important Ministers answer on those days. I hope that, even if the suggestion for a 15-minute extension every day cannot be accepted, at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays a full hour can be devoted to Questions to other Ministers before we get to the Prime Minister's Questions.
This is a reasonable proposal which I hope the Select Committee will examine. Another thing at which it might look, although I do not imagine that it will command universal support, is the possibility of putting a half-hour of Questions on Fridays, when, quite often, the House rises at 2 o'clock or 2.30 p.m.,

particularly when there is Government business, and we waste a couple of hours, which could be spent on exploring these activities. This is a very important question, not just for back benchers, but for Ministers too.
During the short time that I was a Minister I can remember the frustration of wanting to answer a Question, curiously enough, and not being able to do so orally, and make the answers I would have wanted to have made. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will agree to this question going to the Select Committee, so that these problems can be investigated.

10.32 p.m.

Dr. David Kerr: I must apologise to the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) for not being in my place when he raised this matter, and to the House for knocking home some of the nails with which he may have pierced the skin of my hon. Friend. I hope that I shall avoid the charge of being a bore. It would be nice to plead as an excuse that I was outside thinking up new Questions to put down, but that would not be true. I sense that the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) is about to address the House on the subject of the Select Committee's review on this matter. As one who sat in his excellent and stimulating company on that Committee, I am bound to say that, were I to have the good fortune, which alas, I do not, to have been placed on the Committee, I should view the prospect of going over this yet again with considerable gloom. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman does too, and perhaps he will tell us why.
I should like to offer a few observations as to why, if I were to be faced with this new request, I would feel that perhaps, more was being asked of me and the Committee than could reasonably be expected. The Committee carried out a review of many of the aspects of Question Time, and it came up with some not very satisfactory answers. The Committee would agree that they were not very satisfactory. The House debated them, and we have instituted some of them. The whole business of Question Time is surrounded by a folk lore of its own, by a superstructure of conventions which, even today, after nearly four years


in the House and I hope, not too dim a reputation as a "Question asker"—perhaps not as bright as some luminaries on both sides of the House—I still find puzzling.
I have asked my share of Questions, but the conventions about which Questions one may ask are so complicated that, to take the fullest advantage of them, requires years of really hard attention and careful study. There is nothing simple about putting down a Question. The Select Committee's recommendations added to the complications of asking Questions. When the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Kirk) was talking about transferability, I thought that he did not take his case quite far enough. It is true that the Select Committee recommended, and I believe that the House agreed, that Ministers should transfer Questions not later than 48 hours after their being tabled.
Taking that in conjunction with the need always to put down a Question no more, and no less than, three weeks ahead—if it is presented too early, the Table Office will not accept it, and if it is too late it is so low on the Order Paper that it has not a hope of an Oral Answer—a transfer of even two hours, let alone 48 hours, means that one is transferred to the bottom of the list for Oral Answer. It means very often that a topical Question might have to wait as much as six weeks before a reasonable chance of an Oral Answer from the responsible Minister.
I suppose that this is something that we all have to accept. The Table Office is of immense and invariable help to us all, but sometimes we both go astray. Sometimes I suspect that the Minister is ducking rather cleverly, but this is a charge that I could not hope to make stick. I am not concerned with the minutiae of Question Time, important as these are. I am concerned with the general picture of Question Time as it is now presented. I need not remind the House that a special interest in this problem is a new thing. There is nothing deeply traditional about Question Time, nor did it come into existence as a gradually formulated procedure of the House. It grew up entirely spontaneously during the latter years of the last century, and established itself as a most valuable instrument of pressure against the Ministers of the Crown. It

has not remained a valuable pressure. It is no longer that same instrument of pressure and of inquiry. It still serves a useful purpose, but it is nowhere near as useful as it was.
I should like to indicate what in my view are some of the important changes which are taking place in Question Time and which, in my prediction, will gradually reduce the effectiveness of Question Time. I hate to destroy the future hopes of the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick). We are all aware of the valuable and, if I may say so, incessant use to which he puts it. None the less, it is quite clear that as Question Time replaced its predecessors in the form of petitions and other forms of Parliamentary activity, so we will see Question Time replaced by other changes, not the least of which is the Parliamentary Commissioner. The increase in the number of Questions and the liveliness of questioners are reducing Question Time and of course, Mr. Speaker, making your own rôle, which is always decisive, much more difficult to fulfil.

Mr. David Winnick: Would my hon. Friend agree that one purpose of Question Time is not just to probe but also, on occasions like today with Nigeria, to initiate a mini-debate which we would not otherwise have? Surely Question Time serves this very useful purpose.

Dr. Kerr: Yes, it does, and all the 30 or 40 Questions put down for Oral Answer every day could form the basis of precisely the kind of debate which my hon. Friend would like to see take place and which you, Mr. Speaker, quite rightly make sure does not take place, except very occasionally and under certain pressures.
There are many questions and many demands on time. Parliament has so much on its plate that one hour at Question Time can never satisfy the demands of the House. I do not see the answer in extending the length of Question Time, as though the business of the House had elastic sides. It cannot be done. In the course of time the effect of radio and television inside the Chamber, and the use of an extended Parliamentary Committee system will bring more effective pressures to bear on Ministers from the back benches than


Question Time can ever hope to do again.

10.38 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in the debate, because it was my original Amendment down to the Procedure Motion which led the Leader of the House to promise that we should have an hour or so to debate this subject.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) on putting the points so powerfully. As he said, the power of the Parliamentary Question has decreased. When I was a boy I read a novel by Stephen Leacock which contained the phrase, "the whole of England fell over on its face before a Parliamentary Question." That is not so today.
The difficulty is caused by the number of Questions and the comparatively limited amount of time. In 1962–63 there were 77 Oral Questions a day, and we reached about 35, or possibly 40, for answer. We then reached a watershed of high political contentious feeling in about 1965. The 21-day rule was introduced in October, 1965, and there was the General Election of 1966. This led to a great increase in the number of Questions, and no less than 110 per day were being put down. Quite properly, Mr. Speaker, you stepped up the rate of questioning and cut out the double supplementary. As a result, at one time we were getting through about 45 Questions a day. The pressure is rather less now, with about 88 Questions a day being tabled. Of those, we get through about 40, which means that 50 or so hon. Members are dissatisfied nearly every day.
The 21-day rule has meant that all Questions are taken, and each Minister is reached about once every six weeks. However, the worst feature of the rule is that a great many Questions are stale by the time that the Minister answers them.
There are a number of alternative courses open to the House, and I will mention only three of them. The first would be the rather restrictive one of allowing only one Question per day to an hon. Member. That is restrictive, and it would be unfortunate. I should prefer

to see an extra 15 minutes allowed for Questions. Even then, we should have only an hour and ten minutes, since we do not start on the so-called Question Hour until about 2.35 p.m.
Another and rather more radical solution would be to adopt the system practised in India, where a 10-day rule is operated. A Member is not allowed to put down a Question until 10 days before it is due to be answered, which means that Questions are fairly fresh. In addition, five Ministers answer Questions each day, and they answer them in the order in which they are put down. That may annoy the Government, but it brings a lot of variety into Question Time. Questions are not stale, and a larger number of Ministers answer Questions each day. If such a system were adopted in this House, it would avoid the very boring Wednesdays with the Minister of Transport, the Mondays with the Minister of Public Building and Works, and so on.
The transfer of Questions causes a great deal of annoyance, and that needs fresh consideration. If two Questions are written on one piece of paper, the chances are that they are selected together by the printers and, if they happen to appear near the top of the list, both are answered early. That is a detail to which attention should be given.
I am glad that we have had this debate. It is a matter which causes annoyance, and the time has come for some reform.

10.43 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith: I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) in this Motion. It has always struck me that, if every back-bench hon. Member exercised his right, there would be complete chaos. As it is, the Question hour lies in the hands of about one-third of the hon. Members on both sides who are active and persistent questioners. A large number of hon. Members never table a a Question or ask a supplementary.
Again, we labour under this misnomer of the Question hour. Only on two days a week do we get 55 minutes, because Prayers take five minutes every day, and Questions to the Prime Minister are in a rather different category from Questions to Ministers.
Then, the Order Paper is a little clogged with purely parochial Questions which are of constituency interest and are asked by individual hon. Members for the purpose of putting forward their own local cases. However, they are not of general interest to the House and the country.
We need to give this matter close attention. Question Time is the most popular of all Parliamentary institutions, and it is a unique one. Since returning to this House, I have been a little appalled by the way in which some of the new procedures are being pursued. As we are trying to reform certain aspects, I think that the time has come to consider extending, the alleged Question hour to 1½ hours, and I am sure that the system in India to which my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) referred would be well worth considering. Perhaps there might be a little experimentation. It may not work the first time, but let us try to get out of the situation we are in now.
I first came into the House in 1959. Coming back again in 1968 I find Question Time far less effective than it used to be. We had a stage when we were too slow and too few Questions were answered. We then went to the other extreme. Perhaps there is a happy medium.
I always felt that Question Time was the system whereby Ministers were made or destroyed. As a new Member one could spot instantly whether people of either party answering Questions at the Dispatch Box were of the calibre for the job. This is a very testing time for Ministers. It sorts out the men from the boys. This does not apply so much nowadays. As one of my hon. Friends said, with just one answer a Minister can turn off a difficult supplementary question either with great courtesy or with a certain amount of disarming talk. Therefore, I think that we should reconsider the whole subject. We should experiment to try to become more efficient in our procedures, possibly by cutting down on the number of Questions which hon. Members are allowed to table for a particular day and possibly by cutting down on the number of supplementary questions that individual Members are allowed to ask on one day.
I hesitate to talk in the presence of at least one Privy Councillor, but it is a

tradition in this House that they seem to get precedence on various occasions. They do in debate, and I believe that they get precedence at Question Time. Without mentioning names, in the time that I have been back I have seen certain individuals constantly called, whilst many other hon. Members, jumping up in complete frustration, never seem to be called. I know that it is impossible for Mr. Speaker to be fair and impartial to everybody and I am sure that the Chair always does its best on these occasions, but if we could move around more on both sides we would get a better Question Time and a better atmosphere. This would not necessarily put the Government of the day under greater pressure, but it would create a better atmosphere for Parliament and be more enjoyable both for hon. Members and the public.

10.47 p.m.

Mr. R. H. Turton: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) it is slightly embarrassing talking on this subject when one is a member of the Select Committee. The hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) was rather in the same position last Session.
I wish to make three points. The first concerns the extension of Question Time. That was an earlier recommendation of the Select Committee, to which the Government have paid no attention. It is not much good asking the Committee to reconsider the matter when its recommendation—and I hope that I am not defying your previous Ruling, Mr. Speaker—was completely disregarded.
Secondly, satisfactory Question Time. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) pointed out, when we made our recommendation on the 21-day rule and its working, we said that we anticipated that it would not solve the problem and that we would have to return to it: Therefore, today's debate will not have surprised any Member of the Select Committee.
There is this final problem. We have been re-constituted so very late in the Session that our first meeting took place yesterday. The House has given us the remit of trying to decide the financial


year which hardly, at first sight, seems an appropriate matter for a Select Committee on Procedure. It means that we shall have to take a great deal of evidence from many illustrious bodies to decide what should be the financial year.
We have also been asked to look into the times when the House goes into Recess and Adjournment. As the Patronage Secretary knows, that can be, and has been today, a matter for long and anxious debate. I do not see how we can get a quick report on the further matter of Question time when we have those two remits. I very much regret that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman), who is Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure, is not in his place, because I feel sure that that would be the advice that he would give to Mr. Speaker and to the House.

10.50 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Silkin): I am sure that the House is grateful to the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) for raising this matter. If he will take the remark as a compliment, for it is so intended, he is a watchdog who is usually barking in the night.
The right hon. Gentleman has raised a matter of considerable interest to a large number of hon. Members. I am impressed by the large attendance at this hour of the night after a very heavy week. I think that that in itself is indicative of the interest that hon. Members have, and their determination that the Executive shall not exert overweening power against the ordinary back bencher.
It is because of that that the practice of Questions has grown up in the House. It is because of that that we have evolved the system of Select Committees, the right hon. Gentleman being a distinguished Chairman of one of them. It is because of that that the half-hour Adjournment debate has come into existence. It is because of that that Standing Order No. 9 has come into existence. All those are checks on the Executive. There is a higher check, you yourself, Mr. Speaker, and you and I are, I think, somewhat passive, but none the less very

interested spectators in this debate because we are both concerned.
I feel that sometimes the House does not really appreciate its own power. For example, when we are talking about Questions, I wonder whether it is generally realised that we spend more than 10 per cent. of the time that we spend in this House on asking and answering Questions. It is a very large percentage. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Dudley Smith) who wants an hour and a half is really asking for more than 15 per cent. of our time to be allotted to Questions. That seems to be rather a large amount.
A check on the Executive also occurs in another way, and that is in the review which various Select Committees on Procedure have made on Questions. I was interested to find that there were two examinations by Select Committees on Procedure before the Second World War, two in this century, one in 1902, and one in 1936. But since the Second World War there have been no fewer than six examinations by Select Committees on Procedure concerning Questions.
I have to admit as true what was said by the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), and what I understood to be the point made by the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) that Governments do not always take the advice of Select Committees, and they should perhaps. Governments do not adopt every recommendation that every Select Committee makes. I think that it would be a little unreasonable to expect them to do so. They take what they think are the best recommendations, and Governments being human, as in the time when the right hon. Lady's party was the Government, they take those recommendations which they believe are best for the Government of the day. That is natural.
I agree that this matter of Questions needs to be kept under constant review. It is for that reason that I am not endeavouring to answer the right hon. Gentleman's points one by one. It would be very difficult to do so. He threw them in the air. He asked a powerful series of questions on Questions, and he then said, quite rightly, "These are matters that we should look at. I do not know whether I am right. It may


be that I am wrong. Some solution other than the one I have indicated may be right but we should at least look at it". This was a fair point, but another is that the remit of the present Select Committee—a shortened Select Committee, by the way, with that narrow task of considering the financial year, Recesses and Adjournments—requires a speedy answer, and it will be a full-time job for the rest of the Session.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not think that the Government have behaved shabbily in setting up the Committee so late in the Session. It had done an enormous amount of useful work in the last Session and it was felt that it might be allowed some short interval to "gather its breath". In the next Session—because I do not see that the matter of Questions can be considered in what is left of this Session—a new and perhaps increased Select Committee would be free to consider, I hope, any matter that it chooses—

Dame Irene Ward: Is that a promise?

Mr. Silkin: I said that I hope that it would be, and that is as near a promise as I can make. I hope so, because it would be in the interests of the House.

Mr. Kirk: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider a larger Committee, with sub-committees to consider particular points?

Mr. Silkin: I was asked this question in a previous debate, which the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames and the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) attended. I thought then that this was a matter for the Select Committee to decide. There is a great deal to be said for it, although also, perhaps, for not too much proliferation. There are many subjects concerned with procedure which the Select Committee could continually review, and this might be one. I would not dictate to the Committee, but it should certainly be free to consider it, because it is important.
The matter of Questions is something which Select Committees on Procedure have been keeping under fairly continuous watchdog review over the years, at any rate since the Second World War. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will understand why I cannot accede to his

request this Session or be 100 per cent. definite about the next, but I hope that, on my assurance that the next Select Committee will be free to consider what it likes, he will not press his Motion.

10.58 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman has made a valid point about the stage of the Session which we have reached and I shall be surprised if the Select Committee is able to make any substantive recommendation on the matter already referred to it. In that light, it would be foolish of me to try to press the Motion in these terms. However, I regard this matter as urgent, but the right hon. Gentleman has said that he intends to set up a Select Committee on Procedure, and perhaps a larger one, in the next Session, which I hope implied that it will be early in the Session—

Mr. Silkin: Mr. Silkin indicated assent.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: He indicates assent to that
—and that the Committee will be free, if it wishes, to consider this matter. In the confidence that, in view of the general feeling in the House and the realities of the situation, such a Select Committee could not fail to go into this matter, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ALUMINIUM SMELTING PLANTS (SITING)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper.]

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Edward Milne: Decisions reached in relation to the siting of aluminium smelting plants in Britain will have a far-reaching effect on the lives of the people of Britain, Europe, and the world, not only in the immediate future but into the next century and possibly beyond.
As far back as late 1966, studies were made of the United Kingdom smelting possibility, and indeed the chairman of Rio Tinto Zinc has spoken of three years of solid talking on this subject. More companies than expected showed an interest in building aluminium smelter plants in


Britain, many areas of the country were vitally affected and various authorities played an important part in smoothing the way for the various parties interested in this project.
I can only talk at this stage of the area best known to me—my own constituency of Blyth and the area of South-East Northumberland. I would like to pay a tribute to the North-East Development Council, to the Chairman of the Northumberland County Council and its Planning Officer, the Chairman and Surveyor of the Bedlington Urban District Council, and the various people associated with the Blyth Harbour Authority and many others, too numerous to mention, but all worthy of praise for their efforts, individual and combined.
At the Labour Party conference in October, 1967, the Prime Minister, in a speech at Scarborough, turned the full spotlight onto the matter by stating that the Government were ready to discuss with the industry the provision of one or more giant smelters, and that he was discussing with the Chairman of the Coal Board the possibility of linking the coal industry with this new-type project.
At a Press conference held later the same day by the Minister of State, Department of Economic Affairs, an optimistic estimate was given of the venture. Much has happened since then, but little definite progress can be reported, although it now seems reasonably settled that Rio Tinto are to site a 100,000-ton smelter plant at Anglesea in Wales, that British Aluminium are to site a similar capacity plant at Invergordon in Scotland, together with a 240,000-ton alumina plant in the same area, both powered by nuclear energy, and that in addition Alcan is to have a 60,000-ton per annum smelter in South-East Northumberland between Blyth and Lynmouth, the pit which will provide most of the coal needed for the project
In relation to the Alcan project it is of interest to note the expert figures—not those supplied by the Coal Board—of the capital cost based on coal power. The capital cost is estimated at £49 million—£31 million for the smelter and £18 million for power, including power for standby and contingencies.
It is estimated that capital costs for a coal-fired power station are 30 per cent.

less than for nuclear power, and this was its main advantage—a not inconsiderable consideration. The cost of nuclear and coal power was otherwise the same, and this is based on estimates and statements in the Metal Bulletin for 23rd January, 1968.
When it is realised that this capital cost advantage in favour of coal was based on bringing coal from the Northumberland coalfield to Invergordon, how much better economically would the position be in the siting of the smelting plant on the Northumberland coast in the vicinity of the coalfields?
Why, if the figures quoted in relation to smelter capacity are correct, give to the one area of the three most affected by the rundown in the manpower of the mining industry the smallest estimated smelter output, in the initial stages at least?
Those concerned in the smelter issue, most of all the jobless in the development districts and particularly the South-East Northumberland coalfield, along with the folks of the mining communities of Britain beset in the recent past by pit closures and facing further contractions in the mining industry in the near future, have the right to ask the Government the reason for delay. Why, in the first instance, talk about siting the coal-based smelter at Invergordon, far removed from the Northumberland coalfield from where the power to operate the smelter is obtained?
I have no wish to enter into competition with my colleagues from Wales and Scotland, with whom I have excellent relationships, but I wish to put on record the instances of delay in relation to this matter. In the publication British Industry Week of 16th February last it was stated that by the end of the month the Government should make their decision. In a debate in the House on 9th March on the unemployment position in the North-East the Minister responsible for the area was reported to be hopeful of making an early announcement. On 9th May the Prime Minister, replying to a Question, said he hoped to make a statement before Easter.
Three weeks before Easter my right hon. Friend told a meeting of hon. Members who represent the North-East that


the decision about smelters could be given in a matter of days rather than weeks, and as recently as 11th May the Financial Times was informing us that Britain had postponed for at least a fortnight any decision on plans to site three aluminium plants in development areas. In considering the question of siting and some of the reasons for the delay—and I hope that at least some of these questions will be answered tonight—it is interesting to note that British Industry Week for 13th October maintained:
Politics rather than economics dominates the whole question. Expediency rather than principle will decide the outcome. Quite apart from Mr. Wilson's … speech … at Scarborough when announcing the smelting project—he knitted together the most agreeable elements of import saving, aid to development areas and to the science-based, power intensive industries and his prospect of state-private links—politics is the core of the matter. Like the great aluminium war of 1958 when Reynolds Metals with Tube Investments won control of British Aluminium, the present situation smacks of a struggle for power by the world's aluminium giants for the most convenient low-cost location for smelting close to the fast-growing market of Europe.
There seems no real justification for delay. This was a straight-forward commercial project. I believe that there was a report from the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation strongly urging a rapid start. I have formed the opinion, as a result of talks with Ministers, that there has been some confused thinking on this matter. I do not want to appear unfair, but straight talking is obviously required.
If we had been presented with a firm policy and clear commitments to the industry—and I have particularly in mind the Prime Minister's speech at Scarborough in October—and some Government partnership in the project, there is no reason why the smelter could not have been under construction by now. The importance of import saving has been a major factor in the smelter issue, and different figures have been given of the loss caused by the delay. One industrial expert has reckoned a figure approaching £50 million in terms of imports. Whatever the correct figure, our balance of payments will be the sufferer.
The rôle of Norway, an age-long friend of Britain and one of our partners in E.F.T.A., has been called into question on the reason for the delay. This was dealt with categorically by the Prime

Minister in the House when he replied to a Question on 9th May. The Prime Minister said:
My hon. Friend will understand our disappointment at not being able to give an answer earlier, but the delay arose not so much from our discussions with E.F.T.A. as from the very detailed negotiations of the three firms with which we have been in negotiation regarding proposals to build all three in development areas. There are still some difficulties to be sewn up. The fact that there are three and we want to be fair as between the three and the need to be extremely careful about commitments in regard to Government expenditure or Government assistance on the project are the reasons why the matter has been delayed longer than I should have wanted.
He went on to say:
It would not be particularly helpful to talk about discussions now going on in the E.F.T.A. Ministerial Council. There have been difficulties here, and there are some views expressed by some of our E.F.T.A. partners on the matter to which we do not agree. The main reason for the delay—and I had hoped that we could have had an announcement before Easter—is the reason I have given; not so much our discussions with our E.F.T.A. partners as detailed and intricate negotiations which my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has been carrying out with the three firms."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th May, 1968; Vol. 764, 622.]
I am certain that our Norwegian friends need not be unduly disturbed about the effects of our entry into the aluminium smelter field. All the steps taken by the Government are in keeping with our long declared policy of aid to the development areas of this country. Norway has everything to gain in my view from a general improvement of conditions in the Northern Region. Full employment and an expanding economy in South-East Northumberland can bring great benefit to both Britain and Norway by providing expanding markets that the economies of both countries need. The difficulties should be finally resolved in the talks in Oslo next week.
There is no real reason to prevent the Government—I hope my hon. Friend will pass this point on to his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade—going ahead with the aluminium fabricating plants which will be needed when the smelters go into production using aluminium from Norway in the interim period and building around South-East Northumberland a complex of industries based on this vital raw material. This, coupled with the expansion of the Port of Blyth to berth the 40,000 ton


ore carriers to ship the raw materials needed in smelting, would give the area the type of job opportunities it so urgently requires. Because of the existence of two excellent sites at Lynmouth and Sleekburn, there is no reason why an alumina plant similar to that proposed at Invergordon could not also be sited in the area. The urgency of the matter is further underlined when we read in the trade journal of 26th January this year:
In the last day or two, Alusuisse has made a coal based proposition to the United Kingdom Government, still at its original smelter size of 60,000 tons per annum.
Since this Swiss firm was one of the original firms to survey the possibilities on the Northumberland coast, it becomes all the more necessary to ask the Government, particularly the Board of Trade, what was done in the early stages of the discussions in regard to this project to speed up the introduction of this valuable project of aluminium smelting to Britain's economy and to Britain's industry.
Another side advantage, but one of major importance, which this country will gain from the siting of the smelter plants in Britain is the repayment of the loan made to Alcan during the Second World War. This was a wartime arrangement whereby the United Kingdom made a loan to Alcan to finance capacity expansions of aluminium for Britain's war effort. In return, the United Kingdom secured a call option on 250,000 tons a year of aluminium from Canada. The loan terminates by stages from 1971 to 1974, but it has been stated that the loan would be repaid in three stages beginning almost immediately and concluding well before the scheduled terminal date. I think that this is a matter that ought to be taken into consideration, because as a dollar payment of no mean importance this would obviously have a significant immediate effect on Britain's precarious balance of payments—another telling reason for the need for urgency and quick decisions in this vital matter.
Although we do not expect tonight my hon. Friend to give us some definite news, we nevertheless urge him to prevail upon the Government to give us within a few days a definite decision which will gladden the hearts of my constituents and the people of the development areas of Britain and usher in an era which will

be of inestimable value to Britain's economy and the future well-being of its people.

11.16 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edmund Dell): I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this subject on the Adjournment, since it provides me with the opportunity to give the House some of the background to this question of expanding aluminium smelting in the United Kingdom. I should like to say, first of all, that this question has woven into it threads from most of the important economic policies of the Government, as well as vital political, local and international considerations.
I must first broaden the horizon of my remarks, since we cannot look at our own industry except in the context of the world situation. Aluminium smelting is essentially an internationally-based industry and a large part of world production is in the hands of relatively few companies. World consumption is increasing over the long term at about 12 per cent. a year and the metal-producing companies install new capacity in many countries to keep step with this very rapid increase in demand. World production in 1967 was about 7 million tons and, on present trends, is expected to reach 8 million tons to 9 million tons a year in the early 1970s. Estimates for 1980 vary between 15 million and 17 million tons.
Although, as a leading industrial country, we are one of the world's largest consumers of aluminium, we alone among the large consuming countries have no significant domestic production. In fact, we import almost all our consumption of about 400,000 tons a year. The reason why this industry has not developed to any great extent in this country is simple. Vast amounts of power are needed to produce aluminium from alumina, and the aluminium companies have sought to locate smelters in areas of the world where cheap power is readily available. Aluminium smelting has, therefore, developed faster elsewhere in countries which have, in the main, access to the cheapest form of power supply, and production has gone ahead rapidly in such countries as Canada, the United States and Norway. British finance, both Government and private, has contributed to these developments.
The position may now be changing. The economics of moving bulk commodities and the development of new sources of power are felt by many to operate in favour of installing smelting capacity near to the markets for metal.
It has been these considerations, in particular the development of nuclear power, which led a number of companies to examine very seriously the possibility of installing new aluminum smelters in this country, and to take the initiative in putting various proposals to the Government.
The Government recognised that the possibility of producing electricity on an economic basis substantially more cheaply than at present opened up the prospect that some kinds of industrial production, of which aluminium smelting was the obvious example, would become economically viable in this country for the first time. It was this that led to the arrangements announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 4th October of last year. Under these arrangements, the Government undertook that in certain circumstances where it was in the national interest they would authorise the electricity generating boards to negotiate special contracts to supply new large demands for power to establish in this country industries which needed exceptionally large quantities of electricity. Under these arrangements, the users would be required to meet the capital cost of the necessary generating capacity, together with the actual operating costs. On this basis, the Government invited a number of interested aluminium companies to submit proposals for erecting new smelters in this country. This is where we come to the question of siting.
The Government made it clear that any smelters which might be established should be located in development areas. Subject to this condition, the companies were free to propose sites based upon their commercial judgment. Such sites, however, are few, for the criteria are stringent. An aluminium smelter basically requires a large area of level ground, ready access to deep water port facilities, good transport link to the fabricating outlets and a supply of suitable labour.
In the light of these requirements, the companies selected various sites.

R.T.Z./B.I.C.C. chose Holyhead, on Anglesey, Alcan chose Invergordon, and the British Aluminium Company, while mentioning other sites, also indicated a strong preference for Invergordon. The proposals from the companies were evaluated, at the Government's request, by the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation. At the same time the Government themselves made certain studies of the social costs and benefits involved in each of the locations chosen by the companies.
Subsequently the Government also invited the companies to consider coal as a possible source of fuel for power generation, having regard to the existence of coal stocks, and one of them, Alcan, has in fact proposed that it should follow this route under a contract negotiated direct with the National Coal Board. At the Government's request—I emphasise that it was at the Government's request—Alcan agreed to consider the suitability of alternative sites in North East England, adjacent to sources from which I understand that N.C.B. proposes to supply much of the coal which would be provided to this company for use in its power station.
In the light of the I.R.C. recommendations and the results of their own studies, the Government have entered into detailed negotiations with the companies with a view to enabling smelters to be established in various locations, so as to make the maximum use of national and local resources, having regard to the needs of each area, particularly in employment terms. These negotiations are exceedingly complex and raise many important economic financial and international problems. Moreover, substantial sums of money are involved, both from the companies and from public sources, by way of investment grants and other forms of assistance available in development areas. If in addition to finance from commercial sources special financing proves unavoidable to get this industry going, there will be powers available under the Industrial Expansion Bill. It is not surprising, therefore, that our talks with the companies are still continuing. I hope that we shall soon bring them to a satisfactory conclusion and no one will be more pleased than I if we can.
I am aware that there has been criticism of that length of time taken.


I noticed with regret that the chairman of Rio Tinto Zinc has felt obliged to comment publicly on this aspect today. But there is a lot at stake on all sides, and it is important to get the answers right.
Before I close, may I say a few words about the international position in E.F.T.A. At the request of our E.F.T.A. partners, we have explained the basis of the proposals in considerable detail to the Norwegian authorities, who have argued that Norway's exports of aluminium to the United Kingdom may be adversely affected by the developments proposed by the companies, on the basis of regional grants which the Norwegians consider excessive. These discussions have taken place both bilaterally and within the E.F.T.A. Council, and while I cannot pretend that we have satisfied our Norwegian friends, we ourselves are prepared to accept the assurances of those companies which wish to smelt here, that with the expected growth in the British and world markets there will be plenty of room left for Norway's metal. It cannot be stated too often in this context that this is an international industry and that the pattern of the trade in aluminium depends very largely on the policies of the international companies which produce it in many parts of the world.
Further meetings are to take place next week with Norwegian representatives, and my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is flying to Oslo for talks with Norwegian Ministers. We shall seek once more to satisfy Norway on the basis of our understanding of their reasonable expectations. We have undertaken at the recent meeting of E.F.T.A. Ministers to report the outcome of these discussions to the Permanent Council of E.F.T.A., and for that reason if no other I cannot at this date announce any of the anticipated decisions.
I cannot tonight say when it will be possible to make a more comprehensive report to the House. All I can say

now is that the Government and the companies are working on these intricate problems as fast and as hard as we can. But the stakes are high and the rewards in terms of the benefit to the economy through bringing much-needed new industry to areas of high unemployment and the substantial savings which are involved in our import bill are very worth while.
I can, however, assure the House that the needs of those areas which have been mentioned in the debate are fully recognised by the Government and we will try to reach a just and equitable decision in the light of what is best for the economy of the country as a whole.

11.26 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I have listened with great interest to what the Minister of State has said and I congratulate the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) on the tremendous efforts he has put in to obtain an aluminium smelter on the North-East Coast.
I listened to Sir John Coulson at the recent meeting in the Westminster Grand Committee Room on this problem in relation to E.F.T.A., and I find it rather difficult to understand why we were unable, at an earlier stage, before the complexities arose as to siting and other problems in this country, we did not arrive at a satisfactory arrangement with our E.F.T.A. partners. I gather that there was something in the E.F.T.A. Agreement which made our entry into the aluminium smelting project rather complicated and difficult.
It seems to me very disappointing that after all the hard work put in by the hon. Member for Blyth and others who have supported him so well, we should not have been able to smooth out the problems with E.F.T.A. before we entered into the complexities that obviously arose in this country between the Government and the companies concerned.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Eleven o'clock.